The ramblings of a young man (gazza127 diary)

GELDY

ouch - but still good brm - you (effectively) won a sat so had the chance to play it on the cheap

makes the bad beat a little more bearable methinks

gazza127

Last night I almost imploded on poker.

After my exit in the Speed BH, i entered a couple of other tournaments and made very very swift exits.

'Oh well' I thought... I'll just play some cash poker.  I've been doing really well on that as of late.

So I sat down on two 50nl tables (1 mastercash) and started playing.

I played terribly.

Genuinely awful.  I was jamming into draws with no fold equity never getting there... I was trying to make hero calls and running big bluffs in pots I knew I couldnt win.  I was taking big flips I didnt need to take - Essentially the opposite of what I had been doing this past week during my cash upswing.  Before I knew it I was £250 in the hole and feeling pretty awful about myself.

I knew I was barely running bad... the vast majority of it was my awful play.

However, as I knew I was the one playing badly, I sat out a few hands and gave myself a stern talking to.  I told myself to stay patient... dont go chasing pots to try and make up the money lost, but make +ev decisions and I'll be able to cut my loses providing im not coolered in one way or another.

So.... still sat on both tables as I had rebought to the max on both I began to see if I could make a dent in my loses for the evening.  The normal 50nl was very stagnant.  I didnt pick up any decent holdings or win any decent pots, so when the table broke I had only made about £15 back.  The mastercash table on the other hand was going much better.

I think my image from the previous couple of hours allowed me to get paid in spots I wouldnt normally get paid.  When I did have the nuts... people didnt seem to believe as they had seen me bluff a fair few spots.  It probably also helped that they all assumed I was on tilt as well as I had been spewing left right and centre since the beginning of the session.

So my £100 on that table soon turned to £150.... then £200... then £250.

As people started to realise that I was playing much more TAG than LAG, they soon tightened up against me.  They stopped peeling my 3 bets.  My raises on boards were getting folds a lot more often as people started to believe that I had it.  Of course noticing this, I exploited it as best I could winning a fair amount running bluffs... but this time against the right people and at the right time.

The £250 soon turned into £300... then £350.

I ended the night on the mastercash table with a stack of £373 to end the night £30 in the black.  

Somehow salvagng the loses from last night and turning it into a winning session was very very pleasing... something im pretty proud of.  In the past I have been known to continue throwing money away attributing it to 'running bad' or even tilting up stakes.  Not last night though.  I stayed on the table... kept my cool, altered my game and managed to turn a massive losing session into a small winning one.

Slipwater

In Response to Re: The ramblings of a young man (gazza127 diary):

Last night I almost imploded on poker. After my exit in the Speed BH, i entered a couple of other tournaments and made very very swift exits. 'Oh well' I thought... I'll just play some cash poker.  I've been doing really well on that as of late. So I sat down on two 50nl tables (1 mastercash) and started playing. I played terribly. Genuinely awful.  I was jamming into draws with no fold equity never getting there... I was trying to make hero calls and running big bluffs in pots I knew I couldnt win.  I was taking big flips I didnt need to take - Essentially the opposite of what I had been doing this past week during my cash upswing.  Before I knew it I was £250 in the hole and feeling pretty awful about myself. I knew I was barely running bad... the vast majority of it was my awful play. However, as I knew I was the one playing badly, I sat out a few hands and gave myself a stern talking to.  I told myself to stay patient... dont go chasing pots to try and make up the money lost, but make +ev decisions and I'll be able to cut my loses providing im not coolered in one way or another. So.... still sat on both tables as I had rebought to the max on both I began to see if I could make a dent in my loses for the evening.  The normal 50nl was very stagnant.  I didnt pick up any decent holdings or win any decent pots, so when the table broke I had only made about £15 back.  The mastercash table on the other hand was going much better. I think my image from the previous couple of hours allowed me to get paid in spots I wouldnt normally get paid.  When I did have the nuts... people didnt seem to believe as they had seen me bluff a fair few spots.  It probably also helped that they all assumed I was on tilt as well as I had been spewing left right and centre since the beginning of the session. So my £100 on that table soon turned to £150.... then £200... then £250. As people started to realise that I was playing much more TAG than LAG, they soon tightened up against me.  They stopped peeling my 3 bets.  My raises on boards were getting folds a lot more often as people started to believe that I had it.  Of course noticing this, I exploited it as best I could winning a fair amount running bluffs... but this time against the right people and at the right time. The £250 soon turned into £300... then £350. I ended the night on the mastercash table with a stack of £373 to end the night £30 in the black.   Somehow salvagng the loses from last night and turning it into a winning session was very very pleasing... something im pretty proud of.  In the past I have been known to continue throwing money away attributing it to 'running bad' or even tilting up stakes.  Not last night though.  I stayed on the table... kept my cool, altered my game and managed to turn a massive losing session into a small winning one.
Posted by gazza127

Great post, mate. It just goes to show that if you take a time out, remind yourself about what you do well and where your strengths are, you can get on top of this game and pull victory from the jaws of defeat. Patience (as detailed here) is one of the most important parts of a poker player's game, and it is severely underrated.

gazza127

In Response to Re: The ramblings of a young man (gazza127 diary):

In Response to Re: The ramblings of a young man (gazza127 diary) : Great post, mate. It just goes to show that if you take a time out, remind yourself about what you do well and where your strengths are, you can get on top of this game and pull victory from the jaws of defeat. Patience (as detailed here) is one of the most important parts of a poker player's game, and it is severely underrated.
Posted by Slipwater

Cheers mate.  I was certainly pleased I was able to turn it around.  Patience is definitely underrated in poker.  Last night I was so patient I was still playing at 4am.  *yawn*

Work today has been fun.

gazza127

Not much to do at work today.  So naturally I stick up a table or two of cash... but lets keep that on the down-low yeah?

I opened up one 50nl mastercash table and one 100nl table.  Why the 100nl table?  Well all the other 50nl tables were full and I wanted to play two tables... even if it is out of my BR.  Terrible BRM but I wasn't going to get carried away with myself losing BI after BI...

Anyway both tables went quite well.  I ended about £100 up on the 50nl table and about £200 up on the 100nl table in about two hours.  Niceeee

It was thanks in most part to a few bizarre hands from villains including this beauty:

BLADES849	Small blind		£0.50	£0.50	£126.12
gazza127	Big blind		£1.00	£1.50	£118.37
kallia1717	Sit out
	Your hole cards	A J
CHIVALINO	Fold
coaley001	Raise		£3.00	£4.50	£97.00
Rickyyyy	Fold
BLADES849	Fold
gazza127	Raise		£9.00	£13.50	£109.37
coaley001	Call		£7.00	£20.50	£90.00
Flop
		4 2 7
gazza127	Bet		£14.00	£34.50	£95.37
coaley001	Raise		£62.50	£97.00	£27.50
gazza127	All-in		£95.37	£192.37	£0.00
coaley001	All-in		£27.50	£219.87	£0.00
gazza127	Unmatched bet		£19.37	£200.50	£19.37
gazza127	Show	A J
coaley001	Show	10 J
Turn
		5
River
		A
gazza127	Win	Flush to the Ace	£198.70		£218.07

Can you tell he was fed up of me being aggressive?


I felt like I was playing well though in general picking up a fair few decent sized pots and playing conservative when I needed to.  I posted this hand in the poker clinic and asked for peoples opinions, but I think its fair enough checking this back on the river...

Mactrad1	Small blind		£0.25	£0.25	£153.06
EBBERDON	Big blind		£0.50	£0.75	£25.07
	Your hole cards	10 K
PokerKinga	Raise		£1.50	£2.25	£95.50
gazza127	Call		£1.50	£3.75	£202.78
kcxyz	Call		£1.50	£5.25	£101.76
Mactrad1	Call		£1.25	£6.50	£151.81
EBBERDON	Fold
Flop
		10 6 K
Mactrad1	Check
PokerKinga	Bet		£5.00	£11.50	£90.50
gazza127	Raise		£13.25	£24.75	£189.53
kcxyz	Fold
Mactrad1	Fold
PokerKinga	Call		£8.25	£33.00	£82.25
Turn
		6
PokerKinga	Check
gazza127	Bet		£17.00	£50.00	£172.53
PokerKinga	Call		£17.00	£67.00	£65.25
River
		8
PokerKinga	Check
gazza127	Check
PokerKinga	Show	4 5
gazza127	Muck	10 K
PokerKinga	Win	Flush to the King	£65.20		£130.45

So yeah... another winning session on cash with about £300 extra for todays work.  Just don't tell the boss!

gazza127

BOOM.

What a day.  +£300 on cash earlier.... and now a good evening on the MTT tables.

I went to the pub this evening to meet up with a mate.  It was just an after work pint so I got home around 10ish.  Seeing a £6 satellite to the Speed BH, i decided to register.  A mix of run good and playing good and I binked a seat... again!  That must be something like 5/6 for those or something crazy like that.  And to think a month ago i thought i couldnt satellite into anything!

Anyway... I joined the BH at 11pm, so was half an hour behind.  I dont mind joining later to be honest as youre still playing relatively deepstacked but your much less inclined to get attached to mediocre hands/peel hands you shouldnt slightly shallower.

That started well, picking up a number of head prizes early on and I built up a monster stack relatively quickly... and with my new found chip stack I went bossing the table around like there was no tomorrow, shoving a great deal of hands to isolate and pick up bounties and getting more than my fair share of run good to knock others out.

Ran into the top 12 as chip leader, then I clashed with another big stack:

mann25	Big blind		1600.00	1600.00	25880.00
	Your hole cards	K A
larry1959	Fold
gazza127	Raise		3200.00	4800.00	49480.00
ecksmen	Fold
jakealex	All-in		34540.00	39340.00	0.00
mann25	Fold
gazza127	Call		31340.00	70680.00	18140.00
gazza127	Show	K A
jakealex	Show	A K
Flop
		4 3 7
Turn
		8
River
		7
gazza127	Win	Flush to the King	70680.00		88820.00

Dont say I only post the bad beats on here!  Very very fortunate to win this hand and take a storming chip lead.  I've been on the recieving end of a few of these and its not pretty!  Felt pretty sorry for villain... but hey ho I was just pleased it wasn't me!

I took the chip lead into the final table and continued to try and boss the table around... which backfired when I 3 bet shoved 44 to get called by JJ creating another big stack.  A few hands later I pull the chip lead back shoving 15bb with A8 on the button 3 handed and got called by KJ and held.

Knocked out third with flush v 2 pair and went on to win it Ax v KQ!

Needless to say I had more than my fair share of run good... but like I care at the minute!  I played OK... not my best admittidly (important to realise this even if I did win), but the cards were kind and I went on to bink about £770 from a £6 sat.

Not a bad ROI eh? 

gazza127

I can't play poker this weekend as i'm up in Huddersfield meeting up with some University mates I haven't seen in a good while.  Looking forward to it so not remotely bothered I cant play.  Poker is always going to be something I do on the side in my spare time.  If I can meet up with people and do other things I will.  I don't want to be spending all my free time inside on my laptop and become isolated from everyone.  There has to be some sort of balance.

Anyway, as I can't play, this brings a close to Novembers poker - a month which ultimately has been great, but it didn't start so well.

I started the month on a pretty big low.  I had hit a downswing of about £750 on MTTs in October - my biggest downswing to date.  Confidence was pretty low.  I was running generally awful, but probably not playing great either.

Those that keep up to date with the thread (the few of you) will know that to stem the downswing I withdrew everything from SkyPoker early in November.  My balance was £0 on the 4th and I promised i'd only play with my Poker Rewards for the coming month.  So on the 5th when the money hit my account I had £124 to play with.

I dropped down stakes and started playing a lot more £2.20/£3.30 and £5.50 tournaments.  After building my roll up a bit to about £200 playing some HU games too, I managed to win the midnight tournament for about £120.

After a few other cashes and getting into the Speed BH via a £6 satellite and finishing second I had managed to increase my roll to about £550.    Finishing 4th in the 9:30 rebuy the same week my roll was now a very respectable £750.  I was feeling pretty good about myself at this point, knowing that I had been a lot more careful with my BR (still not perfect but hey ho) and I had cut out many mistakes I had been doing the previous month.

Then came a week or so without cashing in anything.  I was playing a fair bit of HU with mixed results, but was losing a bit during the middle of the month.  I still wasn't buying into the main or the big BHs though... which for me at least, is progress.

After managing to satellite into the roller last week for about £30 in total I decided to enter the mini.  I got knocked out of the roller fairly quickly... but maybe this was a blessing in disguise as I could concentrate on the mini.  After winning that for £550 the BR was nearing the £1k mark... a milestone I didnt think id be reaching at the beginning of the month.

With the new BR, I decided to play a bit on cash as MTTs werent proving too fruitful (apart from the mini roller).  This has led to 6 or 7 cash sessions in the past two weeks on 50nl (rightly or wrongly) resulting in about a 1k profit on cash in total for this month... with every session a winning session.  This includes one were I went down £250 but manage to claw it back - something im still very proud of.

This leads to last night.  I came home late and decided again to try and sat into the Speed BH... and got there again for £6.  After a lot of run good and a bit of playing good too I won the tournament winning £770 in the process.

So I guess this months Poker Rewards challenge has been a success.  I feel like im playing a lot better (and running a lot better).  I also think im playing within my roll (apart from possibly cash).  I still havent entered a main event directly and have tried to satellite in to everything I possibly can... something which has proved very fruitful.

So yeah.  £124 into £2670 in about 3 weeks.  Some turn around from the end of last month for sure .  Hoping it continues, but I feel like im better prepared if and when I hit the next downswing.

MTTs:

chicknMelt

awesome month Gazza! very impressive. You'll have to teach me how to play that speed bh someday,  I havent managed one cash in it this month somehow!

DOHHHHHHH

Stunning month! Great turn around.

November is the best

Glenelg

Glad to see you used my chips well in the speed last nite!!  We clashed and for some strange reason my table didnt auto focus so when I clicked on it to get it to come to the front I accidently clicked on all-in!  lolz  run better why dont you!  Anyway have a good weekend!

waller02

Great stuff mate glad to see things turned around for you eventually

PokerNoon

Hey Gazza.

Enjoyed reading your diary. 

Feel free to take this with a pinch of salt as you are WAY more experienced than me.

But you mention a few times when you shove all in with PPs and it being the right move but you end up losing.

I guess you have to decide for yourself what is right and wrong in these situations. Different experts will give differing opinions on this and there isn't always a definitive black and white answer on any given situation.

For example above you talk above about going all in UTG with 99 and losing to KJ. The odds on 2 overcards vs a PP are 50/50. 

So my personal opinion is if you are shoving UTG, you should assume that at least one of the other 5 players still left to play have 2 overcards. So effectively you are giving yourself the value proposition 'am I willing to risk my tournament life on a coin flip?'

Sometimes it will be the right play to do this (particularly when you are really short stacked). But other times you can just raise 3BBs rather than 15BBs and preserve your tournament life a little longer.

Obviously the current table situation, stack sizes of other players etc will come into play regarding the likelihood of being called. But personally I'd rather stay in the game if I've still got 15BBs left. I don't believe you have to go crazy and shove at this point unless you have a monster.

What's your take on this?

gazza127

Hi PokerNoon,

Nice to know you enjoy the diary. 

Im going to try and explain this as best I can... I've had a heavy weekend so bare with me please!

OK.  If I had 15bb in a tournament, i am never going to be min raising (definitely not 3xing) then folding to a shove.  I'd only be min raising to induce a shove from someone else looking to call it off.  For me at least there are two moves with 15bb... shove all in or fold.  Why is this?  Well if I were to raise 99 pre with 15 bb and get two callers and the flop comes down KQ4... what do I do then?  Both of my opponents could easily have Ax hands that have missed... but im not to know and would most likely end up giving up the pot to any resisitance.

If I shove with my 99 for 15bb then I use as much fold equity as possible to steal the blinds.  Every chip is crucial in the latter stages and I cant be minraise folding a lot as this ultimately will result in a dwindelling chip stack (unless you are running super well).  I want the blinds or a DU at this stage... not to play post flop poker... particularly if Im out of position.  I can still get called by many hands I crush... especially if its a BH (e.g. 88- and A2,A3 etc), and look good for a double up.  Its important to note that a lot of the time its not going to be a 50/50 flip when I shove 99 and get called.  Sometimes I will be way ahead... others way behind.

I play tournaments for the win.... not the min cash, so I have little interest in preserving my chip stack and sneaking into the money, only to become so shortstacked it doesnt matter what hand you have... you've lost your fold equity.  With 15bb you can be shoving much wider to pick up blinds getting people to fold dominating hands.  The vast majority of the money is at the final table... or even just for 1st.  As i've said on a few occassions, i'd rather win 1 tournament out of 10 than min cash 5/10.  If that means taking a flip for my tournament life now and again... then yes i'll do it.  On occassions it doesnt work out... but for everytime i've posted a 99 v KJ hand and lost, im sure theres another incident where I have won and gone on to take a healthy profit from the tournament.

Of course sats play different, where you can fold hands like this instantly if there is a shortstack on the bubble, but this is the rule I generally go by in MTTs:

Give me the DU so I can go on to win it.... or knock me out.

Although its important to note that I don't call as wide when I have 15bb and someone else shoves.  You generally want to be the first in the pot so you have max fold equity and can be shoving wider.  I have quite a narrow calling range with 15bb as you can no longer win the hand just by getting others to fold...

gazza127

... and thanks for the kind words guys

November has been kind.

Lambert180

It's funny cos I'd say 15xBB is that grey/middle area on Sky. It's definitely the exception and not the rule that I'd be jamming 15xBB. I'd be minraise/folding or minraise/calling nearly 100% of the time. Yes we can minraise/fold from 15xBB.

You kinda sum it up in your last paragraph, you have quite a narrow range to call a 15xBB shove and your range is probably wider than most so when we just open shove 15xBB, most of the time we just get folds or get called when we're in trouble (unless we're only shoving a really tight range ourselves).

F_Ivanovic

Yeah I think with sky somewhere between 8 and 12bb's is where we are looking to play shove/fold. I'm happy enough min-r folding out of a 12. Also shoving 99 UTG with 15bbs with no ante's is only marginally a +ev play if we assume a calling range of AK, TT+ Against 5 opponents there is a 0.11 of being up against a bigger pair (1 in 9 times) I don't know the probability of being up against AK 5 way but will guess at 1 in 9 aswell (we could also be called by AQ perhaps) 

So 7 out of 9 times we will pick up 1.5bb uncontested to give us 10.5bb. Add that to our original stack and we have 25.5bb. 1 out of 9 times we will be in a flip (slightly ahead) and win around 16.5bbs. 1 in 9 times we will get it in as a 20% dog. And we will only win 6.5bbs. Add all of them together and divide by 3 and we get 16.2bbs. Meaning on average we will only have a profit of 1.2bbs by shoving 99 UTG when we give our opponents a tight calling range.

hhyftrftdr

Ivan, if you are happy to blind down to 8bb before getting shovy, this is a bit of a leak I think. Ditto raise folding from a 12bb stack (without very specific reads, or some crazy action). But I don't think we'll ever see eye to eye on this

Unless I missed it in Gazza's post, not sure where all this talk of shipping 99 with 15bb from utg has come from. But i agree with most of what he put. 

Jac35

Been here before methinks

hhyftrftdr

Good point Jac.

Anyway, I have about 17bb in the Roller so should be concentrating on that, looking for a good double spot

gazza127

In Response to Re: The ramblings of a young man (gazza127 diary):

Good point Jac. Anyway, I have about 17bb in the Roller so should be concentrating on that, looking for a good double spot
Posted by hhyftrftdr

Good luck!

I went out KK v AK. 

Jac35

Unlucky Gazza 

Good luck Harry

Me? Reading a book and popping onto forum every so often to see if anything exciting is happening.

I live a wild life 

hhyftrftdr

On break now, will have 7k at 3/600 on return. 

Raise/folding will not even enter the thought process! 

Ah, love a good hijack of someones thread. I have wasted my break

hhyftrftdr

Well I trebled, then doubled again

Up to 36k 

Lambert180

FWIW, minraise/folding (or doing anything other than open shoving) with 12xBB is a little more up for debate and there are situations that call for it and a lot that don't but I was talking more about 15xBB.

Not open shoving 15xBB imo isn't even up for debate, it's just generally not the best way to use your stack. For instance, against loads of people in the BB that are really tight we can blind steal either from the SB or Button with literally ATC, do we wanna open ship 15xBB against their BB with 89o when we'll be crushed everytime we get called, or do we wanna minraise knowing it works and gets the same result of stealing 1xBB 95% of the time, and the odd time they have a top 5% hand, we just fold and don't bust the tourney.

If we're open shipping all our hands with this stack size then we either have to be way tighter than is optimal OR we have to make wreckless jams with weak holdings that we could just mr/fold knowing we're never getting exploited.

There are some caveats, like I generally open ship larger stacks for value in a small stakes BH than any other comp cos I know how light you get called so I do it when I want the call in situations where I know people won't think anything of my differing opening sizes.

Sorry for the derail

hhyftrftdr

Lambert, stop derailing my progress reports!

F_Ivanovic

Yeah as Lambert said we were talking about what to do with a 15bb stack size. If you want to discuss 8bb to 12bb again we can do it in my thread! btw the 99 with 15bb came from pokernoon who mentioned how to play 99 UTG and then gave a 15bb stack size.

DoubleAAA

Ivanovic, it might be a marginal +cEV play (99 for 15bbs) but I doubt that it will not be a +EV play.  You have to calculate the ICM and will our chips be worth more when we win compared to all the times that we lose?

Congrats on a good month Gazza!

I think perhaps open-shoving 99 for 15bbs might possibly be a leak of yours that you could easily fix.  It's just too deep to be open-shoving this hand.

hhyftrftdr

Would love to discuss all this boys but am currently concentrating on the Roller

hhyftrftdr

Sigh, AK < AQ AIP, Q on turn for a 95k stack @ 2/4000....vs a really poor player to rub it in.

Min cash will have to suffice. 

Don't forget to mention your mini exit tonight Gazza whenever you update next

chicknMelt

my view:

on other sites, you cant open from <20bb unless your willing to call it off because you get 3bet sooo much in the late stages...

on sky, people seem to 3bet ALOT less in late stages of tourneys, so I'm much happier to open from down to 12bb (i can fold and still have 10bb). Generally you get to see a flop and make a decision then whether to go with it or not, or just take the blinds.

99 UTG with 15bb is right on the line for me... I dont really want to fold it, but then again, I dont want to call a shove - i'd much rather shove. so I guess, in a BH, with bigstacks in late pos/blinds, I'd shove because they will call lighter than normal. but if people are short, I'd be more inclined to min r, as I'm only likely to get shoved on by dominating pairs and overs...and a couble up from 13bb instead of 15 would still put you in a great position.