Mostly thanks to a few pointers from Waffles, I've opened up my Rush Poker cash game a bit. I think I've been playing too nitty lately due to a few bad experiences with fish that couldn't fold at all and seemingly ready availability of fish stacking off light... but my winrate wasn't really doing so well after a few thousand hands. I was losing a good amount of money, and I couldn't call it all variance as easily after 5,000 hands or so.
So I started bluffing more in my session last night, and ended up a buy-in after my logging on to play at the NL .02/.05 Rush tables, which was really good considering I got hit on the wrong side of set over set once to lose a buy in and had my JJ cracked on a AJ4 flop shove by AK when a 4 turned and ace rivered (runner runner better full house? I run so bad haha). It's definitely working out for me so far; I think I picked up at least a buy in on my bluffs alone, and it was much more fun being so much more active. I ended up playing 1000 hands before I even knew it (I usually just play 500). Thanks Waffles... let's hope this isn't only the "good" side of variance, and that I'm on my way to plugging another leak and becoming a winning cash gamer. Time will tell!
Friday, February 26, 2010
Monday, February 22, 2010
Atlantic City, great cash games
Last weekend, I had a blast. I went to Atlantic City with 6 other guys, all packed into two Super 8 motel rooms near the boardwalk. The first night we got there, we decided to start the night off by taking down a 40 oz. of Hurricane malt liquor apiece (I know, disgusting, but it was $1.50 each to get pretty much wasted).
From there, we let our inner degenerates out. We hit roulette, the craps tables, even some slots in a drunken haze. While it was definitely fun at the time, I need to remember to never, ever, ever gamble on non-poker related games ever again. Let's just say that I ran through a few hundred pretty quickly while betting the minimum $10 wagers or on the penny slots.
Around midnight, I finally started getting that itch to play some good old poker, and wandered off on my own to the Trump Taj Mahal (I was the only one of the guys who was really interested in the cash games). It was completely packed, wait list and all, but it went through pretty quickly and I found myself sitting down pretty quickly amongst the crowd of drunken hooligans throwing their money around without much skill or regard to the cards in play. Unfortunately, I blended in a little too well, still being a drunken hooligan myself and helping myself to the drinks that cocktail waitresses brought around. The night was a blur, but I remember coming back to the motel around 6 am, staggering into bed, and miraculously waking up with around $20 more than I'd gone to the poker tables with.
Huh. Imagine that. Drunk, spewy me, the side of me with some of the worst poker skills ever if you've read my other posts, managed to actually win some money playing against the live crowd. How the hell did that happen?
Needless to say, I felt compelled to go back Saturday night, this time completely sober and itching to win back some of the money I tossed on over to the casinos the night before. Midnight on the weekends was like heaven in the poker room at 1/2 NL. People were raising from early position with junk like K8o to 6 BBs and getting 4+ flat callers. While there were certainly a few people who knew more or less what they were doing, the crowd was by and large incredibly way too loose preflop, not accounting at all for stack sizes or even position, by and large.
What's the best way to exploit that, I thought to myself. Why, a simple shortstacking strategy would be the best, of course. So I buy in for the minimum, and by the end of the night, I quintupled my $60 buy in to $300. Good game, suckers. I can't wait to go back already. I did notice, however, that the huge fish seemed to have lost all their buy-ins by around 3-4 AM. The fish go quick. Here's probably the worst drunken play that I saw that night:
The big fish calls all-in from the button after a UTG raise, my 3-bet raise, and a big stack's 4-bet, 10x shove for 200 BBs. UTG folds, I ditch my QQ, and the 4-bet shover turns over the obvious KK (Hooray for good laydowns! I would've even folded KK in that spot, actually). Silly drunken fish. His hand? Q2 off-suit.
I can't wait until I get to play live there, again. While you may not see many hands compared to online, I love being able to talk to and see other poker players, just shooting the breeze between hands. It also helps that the play is generally just much, much worse since you're in a casino full of degenerate gamblers and the lowest limit is $1/2. Just a little bit, though.
From there, we let our inner degenerates out. We hit roulette, the craps tables, even some slots in a drunken haze. While it was definitely fun at the time, I need to remember to never, ever, ever gamble on non-poker related games ever again. Let's just say that I ran through a few hundred pretty quickly while betting the minimum $10 wagers or on the penny slots.
Around midnight, I finally started getting that itch to play some good old poker, and wandered off on my own to the Trump Taj Mahal (I was the only one of the guys who was really interested in the cash games). It was completely packed, wait list and all, but it went through pretty quickly and I found myself sitting down pretty quickly amongst the crowd of drunken hooligans throwing their money around without much skill or regard to the cards in play. Unfortunately, I blended in a little too well, still being a drunken hooligan myself and helping myself to the drinks that cocktail waitresses brought around. The night was a blur, but I remember coming back to the motel around 6 am, staggering into bed, and miraculously waking up with around $20 more than I'd gone to the poker tables with.
Huh. Imagine that. Drunk, spewy me, the side of me with some of the worst poker skills ever if you've read my other posts, managed to actually win some money playing against the live crowd. How the hell did that happen?
Needless to say, I felt compelled to go back Saturday night, this time completely sober and itching to win back some of the money I tossed on over to the casinos the night before. Midnight on the weekends was like heaven in the poker room at 1/2 NL. People were raising from early position with junk like K8o to 6 BBs and getting 4+ flat callers. While there were certainly a few people who knew more or less what they were doing, the crowd was by and large incredibly way too loose preflop, not accounting at all for stack sizes or even position, by and large.
What's the best way to exploit that, I thought to myself. Why, a simple shortstacking strategy would be the best, of course. So I buy in for the minimum, and by the end of the night, I quintupled my $60 buy in to $300. Good game, suckers. I can't wait to go back already. I did notice, however, that the huge fish seemed to have lost all their buy-ins by around 3-4 AM. The fish go quick. Here's probably the worst drunken play that I saw that night:
The big fish calls all-in from the button after a UTG raise, my 3-bet raise, and a big stack's 4-bet, 10x shove for 200 BBs. UTG folds, I ditch my QQ, and the 4-bet shover turns over the obvious KK (Hooray for good laydowns! I would've even folded KK in that spot, actually). Silly drunken fish. His hand? Q2 off-suit.
I can't wait until I get to play live there, again. While you may not see many hands compared to online, I love being able to talk to and see other poker players, just shooting the breeze between hands. It also helps that the play is generally just much, much worse since you're in a casino full of degenerate gamblers and the lowest limit is $1/2. Just a little bit, though.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Thorn's Big Mistake #3: Not adjusting for deep-stacked play
There won't really be any hand examples here. This is a pretty general problem for people who transition over from tournament play, like I have. We're used to starting maybe 200 BB deep, sure, but the stack to pot ratio (SPR) gets cut in half when the blinds go up... then cut again, and again, and again. The vast majority of a tourney player's game is between 5-50 BBs. "Deep stacked" isn't really in the small stakes tourney player's vocabulary.
I've played poker for years, and have always done terribly at cash games while doing much, much better at tournament play. I've finally found the exact reason why: I've been treating all play at around 50+ big blinds exactly the same. While I got away with it in tournaments, it's lost me a lot of money in the deeper cash games. If you're playing with and against 100+ BB stacks, you need to tighten up a lot more when someone shoves it all in, both preflop and postflop. My pocket Jacks and Queens called way too often. Even my Kings did, when you approach the 200BB+ stack sizes. I didn't place enough credit in the strong draws and the implied odds that come with them, particularly calling with and putting people on gutshots, which go from total spew at smaller stack sizes to good calls since they're so hard for some of us to put people on.
In short, deep stack play is a different game entirely. I've started making adjustments, though, and I can see the changes happening already. I'm no longer spewing cash everywhere. I can lay pocket Kings down preflop. I can call raises preflop with more middle pairs and suited connectors. And best of all, I can start to laugh at the poor, fishy fools that I take to the cleaners because they haven't gotten it yet. I feel like I've finally started to get a grasp on deep stacked play... here's hoping I can turn my habitual losing streak at cash games around. I've certainly paid enough in dues.
I can't wait to polish my skills up a bit more, then hit Atlantic City this Friday :)
I'm too excited with the progress I've made... can't sleep now. Back to the tables I go! Looks like a caffeine day tomorrow.
I've played poker for years, and have always done terribly at cash games while doing much, much better at tournament play. I've finally found the exact reason why: I've been treating all play at around 50+ big blinds exactly the same. While I got away with it in tournaments, it's lost me a lot of money in the deeper cash games. If you're playing with and against 100+ BB stacks, you need to tighten up a lot more when someone shoves it all in, both preflop and postflop. My pocket Jacks and Queens called way too often. Even my Kings did, when you approach the 200BB+ stack sizes. I didn't place enough credit in the strong draws and the implied odds that come with them, particularly calling with and putting people on gutshots, which go from total spew at smaller stack sizes to good calls since they're so hard for some of us to put people on.
In short, deep stack play is a different game entirely. I've started making adjustments, though, and I can see the changes happening already. I'm no longer spewing cash everywhere. I can lay pocket Kings down preflop. I can call raises preflop with more middle pairs and suited connectors. And best of all, I can start to laugh at the poor, fishy fools that I take to the cleaners because they haven't gotten it yet. I feel like I've finally started to get a grasp on deep stacked play... here's hoping I can turn my habitual losing streak at cash games around. I've certainly paid enough in dues.
I can't wait to polish my skills up a bit more, then hit Atlantic City this Friday :)
I'm too excited with the progress I've made... can't sleep now. Back to the tables I go! Looks like a caffeine day tomorrow.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Snow, as far as the eye can see
So I got snowed in this whole week. My neighborhood got a TON of snow, something around 2.5-3 feet. I've lived in this area for a combined total of four years and have never seen more than six inches on the ground at any one time. I remember one of my housemates saying we got close to/maybe even broke the area's all-time record since the U.S. started recording snowfall way back when, and I believe it.
What this meant for me is that work was canceled the whole week, which meant a lot of drinking and a lot of poker... which was a bit of a bad thing if you read my post below. I may or may not have donked off $50 or so playing inebriated. I still need to work on that, and I'm moving down in stakes to build back up again.
I've also made an account on Full Tilt Poker because of the 27% rakeback deal you can find through affiliates. PokerStars' rewards program has the reputation of being the very best... but that's only if you've got Supernova Elite status. Considering that I don't play enough/high enough stakes to even get to Silver, the 27% rakeback deal makes a lot more sense for a casual player like me. More on that later; the next post will probably about next weekend's Atlantic City trip! Here's hoping I have some good news.
Edit: Also, RUSH Poker is incredible. Topic for a new blog post for whenever I can pull myself away from this addictive, addictive game.
What this meant for me is that work was canceled the whole week, which meant a lot of drinking and a lot of poker... which was a bit of a bad thing if you read my post below. I may or may not have donked off $50 or so playing inebriated. I still need to work on that, and I'm moving down in stakes to build back up again.
I've also made an account on Full Tilt Poker because of the 27% rakeback deal you can find through affiliates. PokerStars' rewards program has the reputation of being the very best... but that's only if you've got Supernova Elite status. Considering that I don't play enough/high enough stakes to even get to Silver, the 27% rakeback deal makes a lot more sense for a casual player like me. More on that later; the next post will probably about next weekend's Atlantic City trip! Here's hoping I have some good news.
Edit: Also, RUSH Poker is incredible. Topic for a new blog post for whenever I can pull myself away from this addictive, addictive game.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Thorn's Big Mistakes #2: Playing while not entirely sober
When it comes to poker, I have a drinking problem. It doesn't happen often (just twice in the past six months), but when I do end up drinking and then playing poker, I pretty much go donk off a buy-in or two. Sure, that doesn't sound like much, but since I don't put in a huge volume of hands (maybe 100 a day on average), it absolutely kills my winrate.
For example, last week my Godfather came to DC on business and took me out to a bar. We had a good time, some delightful fish and chips, and a few beers. I admit, I'm a terrible binge drinker (I live with 3 other guys, and we have a beer pong room, complete with ball holders and ice racks to keep the beer cold while playing), so the 2-3 that I had seemed like nothing. Not so on the poker table. I pulled up PokerStars, sat in a cash game, and on the third hand I 3-bet a CO open-raiser with 44. He 4-bets. I don't even think about it because my non-completely sober mind is still stuck on the "hey that open-raise looks like a steal attempt" and I shove over the top. He's got KK. Oops. 100 BB in the sewer. What's worse is that I had notes on him from previous play, marking him down as a solid, multitabling TAG who I've only ever seen 4-bet with the goods. If I'd thought about it at all, took the time to read the notes, etc. I would've made the better play of folding to the 4-bet. Sadly, buzzed me doesn't think much.
I'll definitely have to remember to stick to one drink an hour, if that, when I go to Atlantic City in two weeks and am confronted with free drinks at the table. I'm sure I'll have some good stories to tell with 8 good guys coming along and much poker fun to be had. Here's hoping that includes winning.
For example, last week my Godfather came to DC on business and took me out to a bar. We had a good time, some delightful fish and chips, and a few beers. I admit, I'm a terrible binge drinker (I live with 3 other guys, and we have a beer pong room, complete with ball holders and ice racks to keep the beer cold while playing), so the 2-3 that I had seemed like nothing. Not so on the poker table. I pulled up PokerStars, sat in a cash game, and on the third hand I 3-bet a CO open-raiser with 44. He 4-bets. I don't even think about it because my non-completely sober mind is still stuck on the "hey that open-raise looks like a steal attempt" and I shove over the top. He's got KK. Oops. 100 BB in the sewer. What's worse is that I had notes on him from previous play, marking him down as a solid, multitabling TAG who I've only ever seen 4-bet with the goods. If I'd thought about it at all, took the time to read the notes, etc. I would've made the better play of folding to the 4-bet. Sadly, buzzed me doesn't think much.
I'll definitely have to remember to stick to one drink an hour, if that, when I go to Atlantic City in two weeks and am confronted with free drinks at the table. I'm sure I'll have some good stories to tell with 8 good guys coming along and much poker fun to be had. Here's hoping that includes winning.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)