Darkened Poker

Long time ago a friend sent me 20$ on PokerStars and I started playing 1$ buy in cash games.   Using good bankroll management I managed to not go broke and work it up to 200$ so I was playing 10$ NL cash games and 2$ tournaments.  By a good amount of luck I managed to win a tournament and got an extra 575$ dropped in my bankroll.   Normally this is a good thing but in this case it gave me a chance to make a really stupid mistake.

Since I was playing 1-2$ NL live games and had worked my way through the micro limit levels online so quickly with only my bankroll management requirements holding me back I assumed I could jump to the bigger games.  Given my bankroll was not big enough to match my live game limits I just jumped up to the 40$  NL cash games.  Well I quickly learned that at the higher levels online games are about 10X harder than live games.  I quickly lost the bankroll to play at that level and stepped down to the 20$ NL games.  After a week or so at that level I no longer had the bankroll to play and had to move back to the 10$ level.

Even though I was back at the same level before all this started I was on super tilt for having lost all my tournament gains.   So before long I am all the way back down to 5$ games and I finally realize I need to take some time off from the game to get my head reset.

What I should have done is taken that tournament win money and cashed it out.  There was no reason to keep it on there as I was steadily working my way through the levels and everything was going as planned.  A second best plan would have been to separate my cash game & tournament money and just used that 575$ to only play 5$ tournaments.

Painful lesson to have to learned but I am glad I learned it with a small tournament win rather than big one.

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Darkened Poker

Recently I have started sorting tables only by pot size and getting in line for the tables with the biggest pots even if there is already 15 people ahead of you.  It just does not matter, I would rather wait 1/2 an hour to play with the fish or a bunch of players coming off a feeding frenzy than grind it out with a bunch of nits.

Following this theory I ended up at a table with this guy, his name was 19KgFish and there was a lot of truth in it.  His stats were:  57 VP, 43 PFR, 27  3-Bet, 67 CB

With stats like that I am going to be inclined to let this guy bluff off his money rather than value betting into him.  For some reason everyone else flops monster hands against these guys and takes the money down risk free.  I never flop sets against guys like this but am always forced to make some crazy call to take money off these guys.

Poker Stars $0.10/$0.25 No Limit Hold’em – 8 players

Hero (SB): $12.00

BB: $26.10

Pre Flop: ($0.35) Hero is SB with K A

6 folds, Hero raises to $1, BB raises to $2.75, Hero calls $1.75

Flop: ($5.50) 9 T T (2 players)

Hero checks, BB checks

Turn: ($5.50) 8 (2 players)

Hero checks, BB bets $3, Hero calls $3

River: ($11.50) T (2 players)

Hero checks, BB bets $4, Hero calls $4

Final Pot: $19.50

Hero shows K A (three of a kind, Tens – Ace kicker)

BB shows 2 5 (three of a kind, Tens)

Hero wins $18.60

(Rake: $0.90)   <- what? dam I gave them 1,200 last month, I really need a rake back deal!!!

His 3-bet range at 27% is bigger than my entire range of playing hands so calling in re-raise was a given.  Him checking on the flop was the real tell, if his c-bet range is 67% then the only way he is checking that is if he has a T or really had nothing at all and no draws.

His bet on the turn was kind of weak, he might have picked up a draw, still figure to be ahead of about 95% of his hands.

His bet on the river was even weaker, I figure at worst I might be up against 22 or some other small pair but I am still ahead of 90% of his hands.  Given that it is about 4.5 – 1 to call I need to go with the read.  Plus fish like that are not good at thin value betting so it is even more likely that he is just weak bluffing.

One of these days I will get a good hand against these guys so I can push some serious money into the pot instead of being the kid guessing all the time.

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Darkened Poker

Here is the biggest and costliest difference between the .05/.10 & .10/.25 games on PokerStars.

At the .05/.10 levels you will often see a nice size pot built by the river and then suddenly there is an odd all in over bet on the river.  It was odd because the str8 or flush draw did not get there and a majority of the time just a desperate bluff.

A lot of inexperienced players either think they have to play aggressive poker and put a lot of money into the pot on a draw and/or if their draw does not get there they have to move all-in and try to save themselves.  It is very profitable over all to just pick off these bluffs, once it awhile you run into sets but at least 65% of the time it is a bluff.

VS

Now at the .10/.25 level those odds are completely reversed and I would say 75% of the time you will be shown the nuts and only 25% of the time you will be picking off a bluff.  There is a ton of people that noticed how many people were picking off big bluffs in the last level and are now taking advantage of it in this level.

Do not fall for it.  If the pot is small because there was not a lot of betting and they only bet around the size of the pot then go ahead and call as it will often still be a orphaned pot bluff.  But if you or someone was betting all the way and someone still moves in on the river they are hoping someone notices there is a missed drawn and are looking for the sucker that will make a BIG HERO call.

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Darkened Poker

Even though this is horrible poker that even an average player will find is just barely worth watching it will probably be good for the game overall.  The quick run down of this show is Daniel Negreanu is sitting next to some poker newb and first tries to help him beat a celebrity heads up and win some money.  If that works he/she can then try and take on another poker pro for even more money but this time Daniel is in a sound box and can not help him quite as much.  If he/she beats the pro then they can face off against Daniel himself with no outside help and try to win 100k.

The Good:

• It does a good job of making poker look easy which will bring more people into poker and that is very good for game.  Not sure if it is just editing or the pro’s help but they make it look like the newb just cut through the celebrity, Vanessa Rousso and Daniel Negreanu.
• They also make it look like you can learn poker in 1/2 an hour of instruction, this is good for all those poker instructors out there.  I am sure more than a few newbs will be downloading a few instructional video’s and thinking they can now take on the pro’s.

The Bad:

• This is not a show your going to learn much from, it is so edited that most of the time nothing makes any sense at all.  All you see is the pro’s looking like complete idiots making bad calls and horrible bluffs.
• They also show Daniel making some great reads, which makes for great TV but also highlights just how bad Daniels play must have been when he lost the match later on.  I can only hope the producer told Daniel to let the preacher win.

The Ugly:

• The preacher was thanking god after every winning hand and pulling out Rosemarie every time he was all in.  There is nothing wrong with that except it reminded me of Jerry Yang winning the main event a few years ago.  That was ugly since he turned out to be such a poor ambassador and did nothing to promote the sport while he was the main event champion.  But on the other hand I do like people pushing all in with nothing but a draw and a shout out to god.

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Darkened Poker

Mike Carlo “the mad genius” was completely right when he said people will make a lot of expensive curiosity calls in poker.  This can be a huge amount of profit if you plan ahead and take a line that makes no sense given your hand but involves them calling a large bet on the river.

In this case I just sat down 1 lap ago and noticed the CO was both up a bit and playing a lot of hands.  You can not make money playing a lot of hands unless your aggressive and pick up pots you that you do not deserve.  So I want to let this guy bluff off his money to me.  These guys like to punish weakness so I like to take lines that feint weakness and then re-raise them when they might be confused and have money involved.

This line seemed to work as I got called with a very weak hand which if I had lead on the flop I am sure I would not have gotten paid off at all.

Poker Stars $0.02/$0.05 No Limit Hold’em

Hero (UTG): $6.66

CO: $15.88

Pre Flop: ($0.07) Hero is UTG with K A

Hero raises to $0.20, 2 folds, CO calls $0.20, BTN calls $0.20, 2 folds

Flop: ($0.67) A 6 7 (3 players)

Hero checks, CO checks, BTN checks

Turn: ($0.67) A (3 players)

Hero bets $0.45, CO calls $0.45, BTN folds

River: ($1.57) 2 (2 players)

Hero checks, CO bets $0.30, Hero raises to $0.90, CO calls $0.60

Final Pot: $3.37

Hero shows K A (three of a kind, Aces)

CO mucks 6 T

Thoughts on the line:

• Checking on the flop like I am scared of the Ace, since he is in position I was a little surprised he just checked behind me.  I expected him to try and take it away from me.
• On the turn I lead out when the Ace hit as it looks like I am now not scared of him having the Ace.  I expected him to either try a re-raise there or on the river.  If the Ace did not come I would have still bet but a smaller amount to make it look like a weak probe bet.
• On the river I check like I have taken my one stab at the pot and am now giving up.  He bets so I re-raise him and hope he will make a confused call.

I think I got my wish, since he called with the second lowest pair on the board I am pretty sure he did not really think he was good.  All he could beat was 33, 44, 55 and maybe 65 or 67 as there was no likely draws that I was going for.

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Darkened Poker