If you haven’t checked out my What makes a good PLO player? article yet I suggest you read that before continuing. There’s lots of PLO leaks that are very, very common but hard to spot unless you know to look for them. Until July I think I was down something ridiculous like 40 buyins at 5/10 plo (all due to run bad of course, when has a poker player ever admitted to losing an huge amount of $$ due to poor play over extended periods of time) which I believe was mainly due to leaks I didn’t know I had and poor game selection. It’s really easy to look over your losing hands and think you played perfectly because you can’t spot any mistakes. It took my a long time to realize I was even making these mistakes, let alone figure out how to go about fixing them. This article should drastically increase your learning curve in plo and save you many of thousands of dollars. All for free! Okay now on to the leaks…
Calling too many 3 bets, especially with hands that play poorly vs AAxx
This is by far the biggest leak I see in “good” regulars’ game. They pretty much instacall all 3 bets without even thinking about how well their hand plays vs their opponents 3 betting range. An Ace with three babies (ALLL) is about the worst hand you can be calling 3 bets with, even in position. Let me give you some hand examples of me vs a reg who opens very wide, and loves to call just about all 3 bets regardless of his hand.
Here I 3 bet a decent double suited hand with an Ace and villain calls (incorrectly imo) with A345 rainbow. I’m 70% preflop and 82% on the flop. I know he has position, but there’s just no way he can overcome his equity disadvantage by bluffing me off the best hand often enough and it’s a clear leak for him.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4643779
Same villain as the above hand. In this case it’s not as bad of a preflop call as his hand is slightly better (though he snap called he should at least be thinking about folding preflop). I’m 62% preflop, and have his hand dominated (AJQ8ds vs AJ45ss) but the straight preflop equity doesn’t tell the full story. When the flop comes AJx he’s going to be stacking off and I’m going to be freerolling him to a Q or a flushdraw a lot of the time. Also, I’m going to have AAxx in my range here so he’s going to get it in drawing dead when the flop comes A high and I flop top set and he flops top 2 pair. His flushdraw is also only Jack high and I’m going to have his flushdraw dominated a good bit of the time when be both catch flushdraws. What is he going to do on an AQ5 flop where I flop top 2 and he flop top and bottom 2? On this flop he catches about the best flop he can dream of, the board’s top 2 pair and his hole cards’ middle 2 pair, and he’s still and underdog, I’m 55% to win here.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4643807
Here I exercise good discipline by folding a similar type hand from the btn vs a tight 3 bettor in the BB.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4643850
Here is one more hand example where I fold a very good double suited AK92 hand vs a 4 bet from an 18/14 villain. A lot of people will call here with my hand or even a KKxx hand, but the fact of the matter is this type of villain has AAxx 100% of the time and I’m in really bad shape.
Hand Pot equity Wins Ties
Ac9cKh2h 31.11% 183,288 6,700
AA** 68.89% 410,012 6,700
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4643871
Not correctly counting your outs
I see people get all in with “overpairs” plus flushdraws all the time when it’s obvious they are drawing so thin vs a made straight, trips or a boat and they have either 0-30% equity but put all their money in anyways. Below is a hand that demonstrates this. I apologize in advance to this particular player, as I did not intend to call them out or anything, but pokerhand was having trouble hiding the identities in the hand history for some reason. Anyways, I was not involved in the hand I merely observed it. This player flops an “overpair” plus nut flushdraw on 225 twotone board and checks, the pfr cbets and is raised in position by a 1/2 stack. At this point one of them has trips or better 90%+ of the time, yet this player still elects to put his stack at risk and goes all in. He has 30% equity on the flop and is lucky neither of them have a boat or quads, otherwise he’d be drawing to a jack with 8% equity.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4643948
Not attacking weakness enough and taking advantage of good bluffing opportunities
There’s plenty of opportunities for bluffing in PLO but a lot of people either don’t see them or don’t care to take the “risk” of trying to exploit them. Here’s an example of a four way hand that gets checked around on the flop of 994 rainbow, and then the sb checks to me on the turn. It’s unlikely anyone has a 9 and my turn bet has to work less than half the time to be profitable. I fire my one barrel and pick up the pot uncontested, but I think a lot of people would just try to check it down and spike an A or K on the river to make the best hand instead of taking advantage of this great steal opportunity.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4643988
Not playing your good draws aggressively
A lot of people don’t realize how dominating a lot of their draws are. Below is a hand where I flop what might appear to be a great hand to a lot of people, a wrap on a flushdraw board and the villain flops a pair and the 2nd nut flushdraw. Villain is 79% on the flop and a lot of people facing a raise in my spot are going to peel to at least the turn. Vs a raising range of only made hands (two pair and sets) it’s not such a bad peel either. But if villain is capable of raising some of his strong draws here the peel is pure spew so it widens your raising range as well and makes you harder to play against in addition to extracting value when you flop a dominating draw like this. On an ace high board it makes more sense to just flat in position here, but most people will just call here even if the ace is a deuce and they are missing out on a lot of value.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4643904
Overvaluing, and calling with sets too much
This is kind of a corollary to “Not correctly counting your outs” and somewhat of a bonus section, but I think it really shows that people fail to think about RELATIVE hand strength, and usually only in terms of ABSOLUTE hand strength. A set is 23% on the turn vs a made hand. Put another way, when you hold a set on the turn the river will pair the board 23% of the time. Remember this fact. When someone check calls a As9s8c board and then donks out pot on a 7s turn, you can fold your AAxx. What!? Fold top set? Yes. Now at the higher stakes people are going to be more tricky and be capable of doing this as a bluff and in that situation you can call, but in general people play very straightforwardly and you can safely fold here. When calling a pot sized bet you need at least 33% equity to call and you are lighting money on fire every time you make this call. I know what you are going to say, oh implied odds, duh! I can definitely call here. I think you are vastly overestimating your implied odds here and in order for this call to be correct you need to:
1) Make your hand and
2) Get hero called by your opponent on the river
We already know the probability of 1) is 23%. Look it up on propokertools.com if you don’t believe me. The probability of 2) is not known and it’s something you will have to guesstimate. But how often do you really think villain will call on an Ace or 9 river when the board reads AA789 with three spades when he holds a flush? Turns out it has to be an awful lot. What follows is the math, if you just want to take my word for it you can skip this section, otherwise, prepare to be bored with lot’s of maths!
—————————————————–
These are the equations for figuring out what bet size someone needs to bet for you to have direct odds at drawing with a particular equity amount. We’ll assume we have 23% equity, with a potsize of $100, and solve for their betsize.
1) pot+2*bet=total pot
2) bet/total pot=needed equity
total pot=bet/needed equity (rearranging 2)
pot+2*bet=bet/needed equity (subsituting into 1)
pot/bet+2=1/needed equity (simplifying)
pot/bet=1/needed equity-2
Final equation: bet=pot/(1/needed equity-2)
pot=100
needed equity=23%
bet=100/(1/.23-2)
bet=100/2.3478=42
So to have the direct pot odds to be drawing, villain has to be betting 42% or less of the pot on the turn for you to profitably call assuming no implied odds. Now suppose villain pots it and you call (implied odds duh! ez call, right?). This means the pot is 300 and you need to make up for the $58 you lost on the turn (100+2*42=184, 300-184=116, 116/2=58). So when you hit you need villain to call an extra $58 100% of the time to break even, or suppose you bet 3 times this amount you need them to call $174 into a $300 pot 33% of the time to breakeven. In other words, when you hit they need to be calling your 2/3 size pot bet more than 1/3 of the time for you to even show a profit on the turn call.
—————————————————–
Now I’m by no means saying to go folding sets left and right I’m just saying really take some time to think about what your opponent has and what your equity is in the hand before you go clicking the call or raise button in some situations with your all powerful set.
I hope you learned something. This post took me quite awhile to put together. Please leave a comment if you find any errors, have anything to add and if you liked this learning style of hand examples. I’ll leave you with a cool robot vid and a mind hack vid.
World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale from World Science Festival on Vimeo.
Something I’ve been thinking about lately is how much people love to complain about how much something costs. A couple of weeks ago when I told a guy about my ATMs he started complaining to me about how he went to some state fair type deal and had to withdraw some cash and got “gouged” for $5 just to get his own money. Now I’m not saying that it’s reasonable to be charging $5/transaction at an ATM, but no one put a gun to his head and made him use that ATM. He could have planned ahead better and withdrawn some cash at his bank before he got there or if he really wanted to he could go and buy his own mobile ATM that he could drive to these state fair type events and charge people only $4/transaction and theoretically he should get more business than the other guy by undercutting him.
When people complain about how much something costs, what they are really saying is they think that the person providing that service is overpaid for the amount of work they are doing. Instead of complaining about it, why not try to emulate that person?
Now I’m not saying I’m not guilty of this myself. For example, in Seattle I think parking is vastly overpriced. Typical rates for spots in parking lots (not state owned side streets) is $6 or $7 an hour. For special events like soccer games, spots close to the stadium can cost you $40-$100. Instead of complaining about how expensive it is I should be planning ahead better by anticipating where I can get cheap street parking or I should take the bus more, or bike or walk to my destination. The other thing I could do is look into buying a parking lot myself. Now owning a parking lot isn’t the sexiest business or anything, but I’m sure its very profitable nonetheless. I’m not saying I actually have plans to buy one or that I’ve even done the slightest research into owning one. All I’m saying is that this is a great way to come up with business ideas. Think of someone who you think charges too much for what they provide and figure out how you can become that person.
Now your next excuse will probably be that you don’t have enough capital or will to go out and create a whole new business yourself. Well, you can do the next best thing and buy stock in that company. Think gas is too high? What you are really saying by that is that you think your $3.05(insert current market price of gas) is more valuable than one gallon of gas. What you should do is convert your dollars into oil by buying US Oil stock or if you don’t believe in owning straight commodities go buy stock in oil companies like ConocoPhillips or Chevron
To relate this to poker I think a lot of people are jealous of a guy like Leatherass. “Oh he’s not very good, he just plays a lot of tables and hands. I’m a better poker player than him.” Guess what he makes more than 99.9% of you haters. Instead of complaining about how it’s “unfair” he makes more than you when he’s not as good as you why don’t you try to emulate him and 12 table 8 hours a day. I bet you can’t.
I’ve been playing a lot more mixed games lately, mostly the 7 and 8 game mix $40/$80 with a little $20/$40 thrown in. I’ll play the $75/$150 O8 game when it runs on stars, but that’s hardly ever unfortunately. I am still pretty horrible at the stud games, but getting better every day I think.
I’m starting to become seriously worried about the state of the games for the first time in awhile. Hold’em is totally dead above $2/$4 and while plo is not as dead, the games above $2/$4 are also becoming very tough. I’ve been playing a lot with big name pros and the novelty of them has certainly worn off and it’s just annoying that Brian Townsend and Stinger are grinding the same games as me. $40/$80 is decently high I suppose, but not so high that I think I should be facing world class competition on a daily basis. Anyways onto some fun hands against them…
I call down Stinger with Queen high! Lol limit hold’em.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4585075
He more than gets me back later by inducing my bluff. Not sure how I feel about my river bet. How often is he going to call with a Q high straight, 2 pair or set? I figured him for some flopped weak 2 pair like he had, but it would certainly be a sexy way to play the flopped nuts vs someone aggressive like me actually willing to bluff in PLO.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4585081
I stack Btown in a pretty standard spot. My peel preflop is a bit loose, esp vs him but it doesn’t really matter when you flop the nuts.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4585086
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4572869
Full Tilt Poker Game #13964703283: Table Coax (6 max) – $40/$80 Ante $5 – Limit Stud Hi – 14:20:01 ET – 2009/08/11
Seat 1: digididopp ($1,804)
Seat 2: andr3w321 ($2,140.50)
Seat 3: Jennifer Harman ($827)
Seat 4: Jeetorious ($2,000)
Seat 5: hoLeInThep0ket ($1,526)
Seat 6: Madame Maria ($269)
Madame Maria antes $5
andr3w321 antes $5
digididopp antes $5
Jennifer Harman antes $5
hoLeInThep0ket antes $5
Jeetorious antes $5
*** 3RD STREET ***
Dealt to Jennifer Harman [4d]
Dealt to Jeetorious [Tc]
Dealt to hoLeInThep0ket [8h]
Dealt to Madame Maria [7c]
Dealt to digididopp [9d]
Dealt to andr3w321 [Ah 9s] [Th]
Jennifer Harman is low with [4d]
Jennifer Harman brings in for $10
Jeetorious folds
Jeetorious adds $5
hoLeInThep0ket folds
Madame Maria folds
digididopp folds
Madame Maria adds $800
andr3w321 completes it to $40
Jennifer Harman raises to $80
andr3w321 calls $40
*** 4TH STREET ***
Dealt to Jennifer Harman [4d] [3d]
Dealt to andr3w321 [Ah 9s Th] [5s]
andr3w321 checks
Jennifer Harman bets $40
andr3w321 calls $40
*** 5TH STREET ***
Dealt to Jennifer Harman [4d 3d] [Kh]
Dealt to andr3w321 [Ah 9s Th 5s] [2h]
Jennifer Harman bets $80
andr3w321 has 15 seconds left to act
andr3w321 calls $80
*** 6TH STREET ***
Dealt to Jennifer Harman [4d 3d Kh] [As]
Dealt to andr3w321 [Ah 9s Th 5s 2h] [Qh]
Jennifer Harman bets $80
andr3w321 raises to $160
Jennifer Harman calls $80
*** 7TH STREET ***
Dealt to andr3w321 [Ah 9s Th 5s 2h Qh] [Jh]
Jennifer Harman checks
andr3w321 bets $80
Jennifer Harman calls $80
*** SHOW DOWN ***
andr3w321 shows [Ah Jh Th 5s 2h Qh 9s] a flush, Ace high
Jennifer Harman mucks
andr3w321 wins the pot ($907) with a flush, Ace high
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $910 | Rake $3
Seat 1: digididopp folded on 3rd St.
Seat 2: andr3w321 showed [Ah Jh Th 5s 2h Qh 9s] and won ($907) with a flush, Ace high
Seat 3: Jennifer Harman mucked [Ad 4h 4d 3d Kh As 3c] – two pair, Aces and Fours
Seat 4: Jeetorious folded on 3rd St.
Seat 5: hoLeInThep0ket folded on 3rd St.
Seat 6: Madame Maria folded on 3rd St.
A week overdue I know. Couldn’t really help it I’ve been really busy lately. I moved into a new apartment at the end of July and am really still unpacking stuff at the new place more than a week later. My timing wasn’t exactly great either as Seattle had some record breaking heat wave on my move out days with over 100 degree heat. It was not fun.
My landlord at my old place has also been really unreasonable with his expectations for move out. He seems to think it’s the tenants job to make his place look like a completely new joint again and doesn’t understand simple wear & tear or any of his responsibilities. My gf and I have done carpet cleaning and touch up painting at the old place to ensure we get our deposit back which I’m 99% sure is not our responsibility but he has like $2.2k of ours which we’re trying to get back. I don’t think I’ll ever rent from an individual landlord again after this experience. Big management companies are definitely the way to go imo.
July turned out to be a pretty good month for me as far as poker goes. I made about $9k over 22k hands not including rakeback, but the thing I’m most proud of is the improvement I made in my O8 game.
July desktop hands (laptop hands not included)
I’m already playing the highest O8 games that run on stars and definitely feel I have an edge in them. It’s not that I think I’m an expert in the game already (far from it), it just amazes me how many people in the big O8 games try to play 70% of hands or more and by simply playing fewer hands than them I think I automatically have an edge. I actually think they have a pretty good game for 3 handed or fewer, but for 5-6 handed it’s just pure spew imo so I try to sit out when the games get too short as my edge diminishes quite a bit when that happens I think.
Desktop lifetime O8 hands (5.6k hands for +$75 on laptop of lowstakes O8 not included)
As you can see the 75/150 game has some fun variance to it :). Learning new games has also helped with the burn out factor. I actually want to play poker again and am finding it relatively easy to put in 6 hours, 5 days a week which is what I strive for. Sometimes I will only be 1-2 tabling so it may not be as many hands but I’m still getting the hours in which is the important thing. A typical day for me now may involve 2 hours of hold’em, 2 hours of plo, and 2 hours of O8 or mixed games which I actually find quite enjoyable as opposed to just 9 tabling 1/2 nl or 2/4 nl 6 hours a day every day or whatever. Which brings me to another point I’d like to bring up.
While I think I am capable of mass multi-tabling no limit hold’em or plo 6 hours a day and probably making more money it’s not worth it to me. I would much rather make $5k a month every month, enjoy the time I spend playing, and feel I am improving as a poker player every day as opposed to making $10k every month 9 tabling hold’em like a robot and hating every minute of it. It’s just not worth it to me. I know some people will say, “oh that’s just dumb, poker is about making the most money possible” but I would tend to disagree. It doesn’t really make any difference to my lifestyle whatsoever whether I make above a certain amount and I think the intangibles like making the time I spend working more enjoyable for myself way more important to me than making sure I squeak out that extra dollar in +EV for myself. I could also make the argument that my time invested now in learning all the games will make my lifetime hourly much higher if I plan on playing poker for awhile yet to come, which I do, instead of being so shortsighted thinking how can I make the most money at this very instant in time.
ATM machine wise I think some people got the wrong idea from my last post that I had already installed the machines and had them up and running for myself when I made that post. I actually had just ordered them at that time and it took about two weeks to get them. The delivery truck broke down on the way, so I had to go pick them up. At 300lbs a piece it was not fun. Programming them actually ended up being a pretty huge pain in the ass too which wasted like two days of my life, but now I think I could do the next one in like an hour or so. I ended up finally getting them installed on August 3rd or so and had my first customer on the 4th. Haven’t had too much traffic since, but I’m hoping the weekend changes that.
I’ve started thinking about my next article already and could write it on any of my three games. If you have any preference please leave a comment and I’ll take that into consideration in the coming weeks. GL and may you all be boomswitched in August.
I’m often asked should I be 3-betting AJo from the button or what range do you call a 3-bet on the button with vs a big blind 3 bet? My answer is always the same and most good players will have the same response. It depends. What does it depend on? Your opponents tendencies. Don’t know any of them? Think all regs are just “standard”? Well, I have news for you. There’s no such thing as a “standard” regular. You’re just not paying enough attention which brings me to my first point.
Take good notes. My system of taking notes is to have three sections, which I stole from dodgyken which he may have stolen from someone else I’m not sure. But anyways the sections are PREFLOP, POSTFLOP, 3-BET POTS so I can easily and quickly locate the information I need when making a tough decision. In today’s games and perhaps with no limit hold’em in general preflop is by far the most important section that you should be paying attention to.
How many tables are they playing? Before I go into specific preflop tendencies I’d like to quickly add that you should at all times know how many tables each of your opponents are playing. On pokerstars this is more difficult because you can block yourself from the search field so you have to guesstimate, but on fulltilt you can easily search each opponent at your table and find this information out. You can make a lot of broad assumptions once you know how many tables people are playing like usually someone one tabling is a fish or weaker player, while someone 12 tabling is a nitty regular playing roboticly and is unlikely to run a huge bluff on you because they know they can just wait another 2 minutes until they get dealt aces on one of their other tables.
Once you know how many tables someone is usually playing, note it. It’s the first section of my notes above the other three main sections so my notes might look something like this.
8 tables
PREFLOP – 3 bets 67s sb/btn
POSTFLOP – floats in position on dry boards
3-BET POTS – hates giving up
Facing an opponents open. After an opponent opens and the action comes to you, you will have the options of folding, calling or 3 betting. It’s your job to select the option that will yield you highest expected value. This depends on a lot of things but the main ones are:
1. What is your opponents vpip/pfr? If a villain is playing extremely tightly like 18/14 you’re really better off just folding the vast majority of your range. There’s really no reason to call with or 3 bet any speculative hands such as 67s or K5s. Even a hand like JTs you may want to fold depending on relative positions. Let the blinds do their work and bleed them down. Don’t give them any action when they have hands. That’s how they make their money.
Conversely if someone is playing extremely loose, say 27/20 you need to be playing more hands and punishing them for this by 3 betting and flatting them more to take advantage of all the times they have a weak hand and can’t continue with the hand.
2. What is your and their position at the table? You want to play as many hands in position as possible. That does not mean that you should play 100% of your buttons when utg opens however. You need to combine your opponents vpip/pfr numbers with what position they are in to guesstimate what their range is and how they will play it post and preflop which brings me to my last question you should ask yourself before acting.
3. What is your image like? Don’t place too much emphasis on this because most people are just playing their cards and their game, not thinking too much about what other people are doing but it’s worth mentioning. For example, some people 5 bet jam 88+, AQo+ from the blinds vs a button 4 bet regardless of who it is or how tightly they are playing but thinking opponents will realize that a 4 bet from one reg means a lot different than a 4 bet from another reg and will adjust their range accordingly.
4. How will your opponent react to a 3 bet by you? Suppose someone is one tabling, playing 30/20 and opens from the cutoff. You are on the button and not sure whether you should 3 bet or not. Well if someone is one tabling and playing this loose they are going to want to see flops. They did not logon to fold for hours so I would argue that you should be 3 betting the vast majority of your value range here. If they rarely fold preflop you can often infer that they will rarely fold postflop (though you will have to confirm this through play). If this is the case you want hands that can win at showdown. 3 betting in this spot with a hand like 57s is just plain terrible which is a mistake I see regs make all the time. You want to 3 bet hands like 88+ and ATo+ here. Here’s some pokerstove numbers vs the top 30% of hands.
equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 64.007% 63.51% 00.50% 1652930160 12972789.50 { 30% }
Hand 1: 35.993% 35.49% 00.50% 923826341 12972789.50 { 75s }
equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 39.373% 37.73% 01.64% 28712827290 1251814399.50 {30%}
Hand 1: 60.627% 58.98% 01.64% 44888607495 1251814399.50 {10% or 88+, A9s+, KTs+, QTs+, AJo+, KQo }
Now suppose someone is 12 tabling, playing 21/17 and opens from the cutoff. You are on the button and not sure whether you should 3 bet or not. This is what people usually describe as your typical “solid regular”. Well in this spot most regulars are going to be 4 betting or folding because they’ve learned that playing 3 bet pots out of position is usually unprofitable so in anticipation of this you should be polarizing your 3 bet range to air or hands you are willing to 5 bet jam all in. The tricky part is figuring out how loose your 5 bet jam range should be. How do you determine this? You need to pay attention. Regulars adjust to 3 bets by you in different ways. Some don’t adjust.
Some will fold too much to your 3 bets. Vs these players you should be 3 betting all your trash and flatting all your playable hands. This includes all your big hands. If you 3 bet your big hands like aces here you are really just hoping to cooler them with QQ or AK. This is not going to happen very often and you are better off flatting strong hands to get value postflop from their air when they cbet or stack them anyways when the board comes out low vs TT or whatever. You should be 3 betting trash and only trash because they are going to fold vs you loads pf and it’s immediately profitable. Forget everything you ever learned about balance vs these types.
Some will start to 4 bet bluff you more. By this I mean they will 4 bet fold a lot. Vs these players it’s easiest if you polarize your 3 bet range, but if they bluff a lot then their 4 bets are going to be really profitable. You are going to have to throw in a couple light 5 bet jams which are super expensive and risky. This is not fun, I suggest cutting out your 3 bet bluffs almost entirely vs these guys and only 3 betting your strong value hands you are prepared to go all in with. Again, forget everything you ever learned about balance vs these types.
Some will start to 4 bet you lighter for value. By this I mean they will 4 bet/call a 5 bet with hands like 88 and AJo if you really start getting out of line with the 3 bets. Vs these types you are best off widening your 5 bet jamming range to include a slightly wider range that still beats their light stack off range like 99+ and AQo. That is to say completely unpolarize your 3 bet range vs these types and just 3 bet wider for value which you plan on 5 bet jamming with. Again, forget everything you ever learned about balance vs these types.
Some will start to both 4 bet you bluff you more and 4 bet you lighter for value. These are the really solid regs. I suggest just polarizing your 3 bets vs them and not messing with them too much. These players will adjust with a near optimal range and it will be virtually impossible to gain a preflop edge vs them. I suggest flatting a lot of your range and playing postflop poker where you hopefully can get some kind of edge there where they have postflop leaks like peeling cbets too much, cbetting too much, barreling too often, calling down too light etc.
I won’t go into postflop leaks at this time as this article is getting rather long. Ideally you want to be in the last category which means you have no preflop leaks and you are correctly adjusting your preflop range to everyone at the table. Remember, there’s no such thing as “standard” play, a “standard” table or a “standard” reg. Everyone is different and its your job to pay attention and figure out how and how to exploit it. Take good notes and figure out how different people adjust or if they adjust at all.
So I finally got my contract signed with my local sports bar to place an ATM at each of their locations here. Only took me four months since I first registered my LLC with the state. Lol. Here’s a list of my expenses thus far:
|
If you only wanted to start with one ATM you could take 5k off the expenses, if you already had a landline and phone to program the machines you could take $50 off, you could take a little off if you got a less nice hand truck, but you get the general idea of what start up costs are going to be. It should be about two weeks before the machines get here and are ready to go, but I’m just excited to be making progress. As far as revenue goes, I have no idea what to expect. Each location is unique, but I’ll let you know how it goes after the first month.
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about how I can improve my blog and create value for readers who come here. After my What Makes a Good PLO Player? post got such positive feedback I’ve decided I will be writing one poker strategy article per month. While I don’t really like making the games tougher for myself, it’s inevitable anyways and I have no way of stopping it. I think the long term benefits of expanding my readership and quality of blog archives far outweigh the downsides of having the games potentially become slightly tougher during my 20-30 hours/week of play time. Be on the lookout for my No Limit Hold’em: Playing the Player article in the coming weeks/days.
The past week while traveling I picked up a couple of magazines in the airport, specifically Entrepreneur magazine and Inc magazine. I was shuffling threw them and stumbled upon an ad for a subscription and I had no idea print magazine subscriptions were so cheap. You can get a year’s worth of magazines for $10. At first I didn’t realize how they can make any money doing this but then I realized that most of their money comes from ad space they place in the magazine and the more readers they have the more they can charge. Anyways, I’m always looking for new good reading material and if you are too I’d highly recommend getting print magazine subscriptions on your favorite topics. At a dollar a pop they are a practically giving them away anyways.
Keeping with the general theme of things here’s a really good informative and entertaining video on starting an online business.
Yesterday, I woke up around 11am, fed my dog and let him out for a few mins, decided I was too tired to stay up and went back to sleep. Eventually 1pm rolls around and I finally get up. I take a quick shower and then take my dog on his afternoon walk for 30 mins or so.
By the time I get back it’s nearing 2pm and I’m pretty hungry. I throw a couple eggos in the toaster and see what’s on tv. I end up settling on history channel show title The Crumbling of America about how most of the roads, bridges and dams in the US are 40-50 years old now and were originally made with a design life of 50 years so they’re all falling apart. Turns out only 9% of the stimulus package or something like that was spent on infrastructure and its going to become a huge problem in the coming years. Anyways, I find it decently interesting but by 2:30 or so I’m done eating breakfast and continue to watch. 3pm rolls around and I realize it’s a two hour program. Guess I gotta finish it now right? 4pm rolls around and the program finally wraps up.
Time to get some stuff done. I give my local bar a phone call to check on ATM contract status but he’s not there so it’s nothing unusual really. Tomorrow I leave to go back to NC for a wedding and I know I need to pack, clean up and drop my dog off with the dog watchers before the day’s done. I start cleaning some stuff off my desk and notice a deposit slip to Wamu (Washington Mutual Bank). Before I throw these away I like to check online to make sure the account balance is accurate. I try logging in but am transferred to chase.com (who recently bought out Wamu) and it forwards me to my chase.com credit card account not my Wamu checking account like I wanted. I call the support number on the back of my credit card and spend 20 minutes on the phone trying to get it figured out getting forwarded back and forth between the two companies. Eventually I realize the number I’m trying to reach is only open 9am-7pm though it must be EST because they are closed at this time. I become frustrated but I guess I will have to wait til tomorrow to take care of this. It’s now 4:30. I waste 30 mins or so browsing the usual poker blogs, 2+2, CR forums etc.
5pm and I’m hungry again. I heat up some enchiladas and feed my dog dinner. I watch an episode of the Simpsons while I eat. After the show I start packing up some of my dog’s stuff for the dog watcher. Then I take him out on his evening walk. By the time I get back it’s 6:30 or so. I call my gf who’s already back in NC and talk to her for a bit. I read a book for an hour or so until 8pm rolls around. I told the dog watcher I’d drop him off at 9pm and it takes 35 mins to get there so I pack the rest of my dog’s stuff up – cage, food, bowls, leash etc and get him in the car. End up getting there around 9pm, explain the usual how to take of my dog stuff and take off around 9:20. I stop at DQ on the way home and get a chocolate chip blizzard. It’s tasty but before getting it I decide I better go to the gym for a quick run later tonight.
I get back around 10pm and I’m kinda tired. I sit down on the couch with my laptop and check my e-mail, cardplayer, poker blogs etc. I end up stumbling across Steve Pavlina’s blog which is fantastic btw and read it for a couple hours. The dude hasn’t had an employer since the ’90s. He lives in Vegas and makes all his money from various passive ways, most of which are online, but he’s not a poker player. It’s a blog I can relate to as I also don’t have an employer and make most of my money online, but it’s a non poker blog so it’s a welcome refresh from the usual bad beat whining or daily up and down grind that is poker. This guy’s been doing it for years and has really figured out how to do things right in my opinion. It’s like listening to someone with 10 years experience and a lot of success in my field. Check out his “best of” links and his How to become an early riser article.
At this point in my life I’ve been a “professional” poker player for a year and a half but far too many days are spend just coasting through the day with not much of a plan. I play when I want, do what I want when I want. It’s all very unprofessional. I don’t really feel like I have major leaks in my poker game (just a bunch of small ones) but my biggest leak in the world is probably sleeping in too late. It just sets up my whole day up for disaster. In the past I’ve tried to be up by 9:30am to start playing by 10am (I’ve strived for 2 hour sessions starting at 10am, 1pm and 4pm) but when I miss it and end up waking up at 10:30am I decide well I might as well skip the morning session and sleep until 11:30am so I can make the afternoon session. Before you know it I’ve turned what should have been a 6 hour work day into a 3 hour one.
When I get back from NC I’m going to try “practicing waking up” like he says and try to get up when my gf gets up to go to work at like 6:30am 7 days a week for the rest of the year. Impossible you say? Maybe, but I’m gonna give it my best shot, and I hope it works out and I’m able to really put in some serious hours and hands when I get back home next week.
Anyways, back to the day’s highlights. Fast forward to 1am when I finally get the laptop closed and I realize I’m pretty tired and wish I could go to bed but I can’t. I haven’t even accomplished any of the things I knew before the day even started that I need to do. I spend the next two and a half hours packing, taking out the trash, vacuuming, doing laundry, loading the dishes, cleaning off my desk and countertops and making and eating a peanut butter sandwich. By the time I’m done it’s 3:30am and I have to wake up at 9am the next day for my flight. It’s one of the few days out of the year that I have an obligation the next morning so I HAVE to wake up at a predetermined time. If it weren’t for my flight I have little doubt that I would have spent the next day sleeping in til noon and then procrastinating browsing the internet or watching tv much of the day before it’s late at night and I realize I haven’t played as much poker as I should have that day or that I regretfully “didn’t have time” to make it to the gym to work out that day. It’s a vicious cycle that repeats itself. When I get back next week I hope to finally break it and start finally logging some serious hands, working out much more regularly and most importantly waking up early regularly.
I’ll just get right to the results first of all. It was a nice month for me winning 11k or so online (minus 1k or so in online tournies, plus some in rakeback) and winning 2.5k in the wsop events I played. I have started this month running pretty bad dropping almost 5k in 2/4 plo but I’m confident I’ll pull out of the hole in a couple of days or so.
I didn’t end up playing any more events. I was planning on one more, but I ended up playing table games and drinking with my housemates til like 4am the night before so it wasn’t going to be a great idea. The last two weeks of the month have been pretty degenerate. I’m pretty happy to be out of Vegas because that city was starting to destroy me. I played quite a lot of table games and partied quite a bit the last couple of weeks. I went to go see the cirque show “Ka” which was awesome btw, also went to a variety show “V” which I got called up on stage for (not because I volunteered but because he got one volunteer, asked how tall he was which the volunteer responded “5’10″” and then the host pointed at other people in the crowd including me and asked me how tall I was, I reply “6’3″” he replies “5’10”? Great! Come on up on stage!” anyways I didn’t have a hard job I just had to wear a clown mask and give a thumbs up sign every time he tapped me on the shoulder. I think my friends and family that came with me got a good kick out of me being up there.
I also got bottle service for the first time in Vegas at LAX in the mirage. The night started off pregaming a bit at the house, heading to the mirage and quickly dropping $200 in a $25min pai gow table. Moving to the blackjack tables where I ran super hot and won $280 or so getting a couple drinks along the way of course. Then heading into LAX with the group of 9 other people where we got three fifths and obviously get super hammered. Head out and watch my roommates lose a bunch of dough at the table games. Then head over to the mirage’s tiny poker room where a couple of my roommates are playing with what’s likely 90% vpips blind straddling and blind squeezing and such, I try to get them to spread some chinese poker, but their having none of it. I yell at the dealers a bit demanding to play chinese, all of us about get kicked out at one point and then I end up taking a taxi home by myself at like 6am and it’s broad daylight outside while my roommates stick around another hour or so at the poker room. A night like this was a pretty regular occurence in the latter half of June for me.
Another night we went to hooter’s 25 cent wings after midnight and almost ordered everyone in the bar one wing. There was only like 40 other people there so we definitely should have done it, we ended up betting on and talking about whether another guy there was with an escort or not most of the meal. A totally different night we had just gone out to “Tabu” at MGM and ended at hooters again where two of my roommates starting playing the piano there (which you are not allowed to do btw) security guard ended up kicking us off it like three times but the crowd there waiting with us seemed to enjoy the entertainment. After about the third time getting kicked off, my roommate drunkenly asks the security guard how big of an asshole dan marino is from a scale of 1-10 (the restaurant is dan marino’s wings or something at hooters). I missed the response, but we just ended up leaving wingless and taking a stretch hummer home which was pretty badass imo.
Loads of prop bets were made during the month. Quite a few bowling prop bets (Gold coast has $3/game bowling and it open 24/7) one my roommates got 30 to 1 that he wouldn’t get a strike on like $10 but alas he missed. Another roommate got $20 for getting smacked in the head with a plastic pitcher because the other bettor bet that he could either break it over his head or knock him over. Neither happened. My roommate and I both lost $50 to another roommate betting that the shark tank at the Golden Nugget was over 25 feet deep. Turns out its only 18 feet deep. Shenanigans. Obviously immediately after losing this bet I go and put $50 on a single hand of blackjack and win so really I broke even that night right? I lost $20 betting one of my roommates who’s like a pack a day smoker he couldn’t smoke only two cigarettes over the next 72 hours. He outsmarted me by smoking a quarter of cigarette at a time so he actually smoked like 8 or 9 times over that period. He did say he’d never make a bet like that again though as it was pretty tough for him apparently. Two of my roommates bet on whether there was ever a jaguar spotting in Nevada. Turns out there’s been some in Arizona and California but not Nevada. I almost bet my roommate $100 he couldn’t eat 5 In N Out double doubles in 30 minutes and given a couple more days in Vegas the bet probably would have went down but we didn’t come up with the bet til like the 28th or something. I lost maybe $150 playing in our home game which was usually chinese poker for between $1-$5 a point. That game is deceivingly simple, but there is definitely some skill to that game in how you set your hands and maximizing your EV. I’m sure I’m missing a bunch of prop bets but that’s all I can think of at the moment.
I started learning some O8 the past couple of weeks too. There’s not very many resources on the game but I did find this thread which is pretty helpful for first time noobs like me to the game as well as this video by Adam Schwartz from a couple of years ago. I’ve been talking a bit of strategy with some people about the game and I plan on getting a coach soon but for the first couple weeks of the month I want to make some rent money before I go back to fooling around learning limit games. That’s it for now, gl to everyone in the main event.
So I played the events yesterday and today. Yesterday’s was another $1500 10max event. You start with 4500 chips. I ended up chipping up a bit early when I opened J9o from the CO, and BB flatted like tourney donks love to. Flop is K22 rainbow and I cbet. Turn is a Queen and I fire again hoping he’ll fold his pocket 8s or whatever. He calls again, at this point I think he has a king. On the river, I’m lucky enough to river my staight when a Ten hits and fire out 3/4 pot bet since a lot of kings have two pair at this point but he mucks. Maybe I should have bet smaller here, I don’t think I’ve been paid off three streets in a live tourney yet up to this point but he probably just had like K8 or some trash and wasn’t paying off anyways.
I stole a couple more blinds and what not and chipped up to about 8k when I raised to 500 with KK at 100/200 blinds and a shorty shipped his 2k stack in with 97s. He turns a flush and I’m back down to 6k.
I get moved tables and open Ac7s to 500 from the CO at 100/200/25. Sb flats and we see a Kc6c9s flop. I cbet 700 and he calls. Turn is a 2c giving me the nut flush draw and he donks 500, I ship the rest of my stack in and he folds. A couple hands later I open JJ from MP and get 3 bet by the guy I won the A7 hand against two to my left. I flat and we see a 852 rainbow flop. I checkraise all in on the flop which he calls with TT and I’m up to 12k and looking nice at this point.
I bleed away a few chips calling preflop and folding to cbets when my stack is about 10.5k and I open QQ utg to 500. The older man to my direct left 3 bets me to 1475. Honestly this may be a fold right here as the only thing I really beat is AK, but whatever its live pokers and I sit there for hours waiting for QQ so I call. We see a 235 rainbow flop which I checkraise all in and he calls with AKo. Turn pairs the board with another 2, but the river is an offsuit King and I’m crippled down to 3k in chips.
I get moved tables again and blinds go up to 150/300/25. I go all in a couple of times when its folded to me and manage to stay afloat around 3k when my bustout hand arrives. Utg limps, utg+1 limps, sb completes, I look down at KTs and ship my stack in from the big blind. Utg folds, utg+1 tanks for a bit and calls, sb tanks for a bit and reships for 6k more or so. Utg+1 tanks for a couple of minutes and finally folds so I find myself headsup against AJo for a chance to more than triple up about 2 minutes befor the dinner break but unfortunately the board comes out all low cards and I’m sent to the rail. If I would have won either my KK or QQ hands I would have been in really great shape to make a nice run but lady luck was not on my side that day.
Onto Event #30, the $2500 9max PLO. I was kinda debating playing this event as its a bit expensive for me and I’ve never played live PLO before, but I figured this was a great time to start and I’d regret it for a year if I didn’t. It ended up being a relatively small field only like 400 entrants, with quite a few big names, Sammy Farha was one table over, as was David Singer, David Willaims and John Juanda were walking around the area so I’m sure they were in, and Eli Elezra got moved to my table two to my right after about 2 hours into the tourney.
Unfortunately the structure was absolutely terrible in my opinion. You started with 2500 chips with two rebuy/addon chips for another 2500 which you could use at any time. 7500 chips is the same I started the $2500 6max event but people need to realize that plo plays much bigger than nlh and the fact is they should start you with at least double the amount of chips in this tourney. After 2 hours I had bled away half my chips missing every single flop and turn completely. I literally won two pots the entire tournament, one of which was in level one where I took it down headsup with a cbet, the one time I actually flopped something. For example at 50/100, utg opens to 250 I flat on the button with JJ99ss and sb squeezes for 1050 total, utg folds, I call, flop is KK2 rainbow, he bets I fold and say goodbye to 1/7 of my stack in the 2nd level. If I hadn’t immediately added on like most people didn’t it would have been 40% of my stack.
Anyways, I was down to about 3k in chips at 75/150 when CO opens to 400, sb flats, and I overcall with KK37ss to hearts in the BB. Flop is JT4 two hearts, sb checks, I check(maybe a mistake), CO checks. Turn is another 4, sb double checks his hand again and leads for 900 or so and I stick in my last 2600. He says nh and mucks.
Very next hand I’m up to a little less than 5k in chips when I complete 5 way or something from the sb with JT96ss to jack high hearts. Flop is QT3 rainbow with one heart. I check, BB leads for 500, CO calls and I overcall. I considered folding as I only have 4 outs to the nuts but then I thought what am I completing the sb for if I’m folding this flop (this is how mistakes compound themselves btw). Anyways, turn is about as good as I can hope for with the 7h give me an open ended straight flushdraw and midpair, I check, BB checks, CO bets 2250 and I just jam my last 3.5k or so in. I could call and lead all rivers that improve me, but I didn’t want to be stuck there with 5 big blinds and it’s possible I could be making a huge mistake folding the best hand if I check fold a blank river and he bluffs me off the best hand with AKJx or whatever. Anyways he flips over QT8x with the T8 of hearts with quite a few blockers to my draw and river is another 7 pairing the board and sending me to the rail about 2.5 hours into the tournament. I propokertools.com ‘ed it and I’m about 33% in this spot so it’s like a breakeven play here.
Not exactly thrilled with my play or anything, but there’s no room to maneuver at all in this tournament it’s just a complete joke that I’m down to 10 big blinds 2 hours into a two thousand five hundred dollar tournament after being card dead for 70 hands. All luck imo. Not sure if I’ll play any more events, I’m still up like $2k or so in the 6 tournies I’ve played by cashing once, dunno if I want to delve back into the negative. I’ll have to wait a couple days and see if I get the itch to play them again.
Played the shootout this morning. I’ve been looking forward to this one for awhile as I thought it would involve a lot of shorthanded play but it actually ended up playing a lot more like a turbo sit n go that takes like 5 hours.
Anyways I started the day in a rush, waking up late, having to make the taxi wait for me a bit and when I finally got to my table I was yawning a lot on not as fully focused as I usually am at live pokers. I also made a couple of misclicks where I accidentally minraised one hand and accidentally raised to 6x the big blind one hand. I’m not making any excuses for not winning or anything, I’m just saying I most certainly was not playing my A game and probably should have taken the day off as I usually sleep like 9-10 hours at night and was running on maybe 7 last night.
At first I thought my table draw was terrible as the oldest person there was 27 I believe he said. But when people started showing down hands I realized there was definitely good value here. I’d say two of the guys were straight dead money, two eurolags were easy money, maybe one bad internet player and three good tight aggro internet players besides myself.
We started with 4500 chips with 1 hour levels of 25/50, 50/100, 100/200, 150/300/25, 200/400/50. The most donkish hand I saw all day was a limped pot with blinds at 100/200 where eurolag limps utg, 2nd eurolag limps btn, dead money man completes sb (I’m talking a guy who would limp fold with 1200 chips at 100/200), and good internet player bb checks his option. Flop is A64 with two clubs. Dead money man leads out pot for 800, good internet player flats, eurolag1 folds and eurolag2 makes it 1800 to go. Sb dead money man insta3bet jams for 5.1k total, good internet player calls off his stack which is about the same, and eurolag2 tanks for awhile until dead money man calls a clock on him. Finally he calls with A5o. lol. Sb money man tables 64o and internet player tables a set of 4s. So ya, there’s value in these events if you are half decent fyi.
On to my hands, first two levels I got AKo once and squeezed, everyone folded, QQ once, 3bet, got called, then took it down with a cbet. Played A9s to a raise in the first level and mucked to a cbet, and played QJs which I flatted in position when good internet player opened to 250 in the CO at 50/100 blinds. Eurolag2 also called out of the big blind. Flop was J83 two spades, eurolag2 checks, internet player bets 400 into the 800 pot, I call, and eurolag2 makes it 900 to go. Internet player mucks and I tank fold. After seeing his A5o hand later, this may have been my chance for free chips but I was very worried about KJ or something and I really had no idea what turn cards to continue on so I mucked.
I made it down to 4 handed with about 4k in chips when I shipped the btn with K9o at 150/300/25 and got called by internet pro in the sb with A6o. I turned a king and doubled up. I think his call is a bit dubious since K9o is the very bottom of my range here and I still have more than 12 big blinds, but he was right in this instance so what am I to say. Same internet pro later eliminated Eurolag1 when he bet/called KJo vs eurolag1’s resteal with K9o and held.
So I made it to 3 handed with two other internet pros when I find myself in the sb at 150/300/25 with red nines. Btn opens to 800, I 3 bet to 2150 and BB cold 4 bets to 4500 or so. I tank folded here, it looked like he was eyeing my chipstack the whole time figuring out how much to bet not if he should bet here. It may have been a mistake when I already have 1/4 of my stack in but I’m just praying for AK here and am going to see overpairs a ton. Tried to do some quick math on shoving at the table and thought I needed about 40% equity and thought I only had about 30% or so, so I just gave it up.
So blinds went up to 200/400/50 and I was going all in a decent amount on steals and resteals when my bustout hand came. I believe I started the hand with about 6k in chips. Btn folded, sb looks at his cards, asks how much I have, I move my hands so he can see, he says “about 7-8kish?” I don’t respond, and after a little deliberation goes all in. I look down at Kc7c, thought he was weak enough here and pretty much snap called. It may be a slight mistake, and this is where I start blaming fatigue, but he showed up with A4o and I was kinda shocked to be behind. I think the key factor in the hand is that he thought I had more chips than I had and still jammed. Anyways I just pokerstoved it and I was 44% to win so it may be a call regardless here with my stack and the blinds overlay (calling about 5.6k into a pot of what will be 12.1kish). I am no sng expert, but this spot is kinda whatever, maybe it’s a fold, maybe its not, either way I think its very close. Flop is A85 rainbow and on a 5 turn I’m drawing dead. I say nh, take a cab back home and insta-pass out for a couple hours. Probably won’t play the 1.5k tomorrow as I’m kinda burnt out on live poker for a day or two, I’ll let you know when I play another event. Pz.