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I should have just folded pre... no-one limp 3 bets without a great hand. And I ALWAYS fall for the flop overshove... at a push AA may be good in these spots, but less than that and you are never ahead*... yet in game it looks such a weird bet for someone to do with a strong holding that I continue to mug myself into calling. BR will be much healthier when I learn to just sigh fold and say goodbye to my preflop pot contribution.
Play pre-dinner and drop a buy-in, play post-dinner win a buy in.
On the basis of one day of evidence, I'm now going to eat a meal before every session and play better as a result. So what if I get bigger as a result, I've heard loads of single women mention that it's nonsense that size doesn't matter and that the bigger the better... it'll be win-win, more money, more women.
In all seriousness though, for the past two months my later sessions do seem to chuck up better results than late afternoon / early evening - this is probably due to when other people play as opposed to anything I do, but perhaps I'm not flexible enough with my style vs the sort of players you sit with at 6pm vs those you sit with at 9pm or later... either that or stop logging on until 8pm + and do more DIY in the first few hours after I get back from work!
I think I probably got off lucky in quite a few spots yesterday, not least when holding KK vs AA and barely losing a quid due to the complete passiveness of the hand... will post imminently for subsequent forum beating! That was the most memorable example, but throughout the session I kept thinking 'wow, how did I lose so little?' - albeit I'm unsure how much of that was my own success vs suboptimal play by others.
FWIW the oppo had been playing super tight, folding most of my button raises and giving up to a cbet every time I could remember a hand getting that far, which is why I was 1/2 potting every flop - so the call set off my spidey senses on a paired board where a J would feature strongly in hands he might occasionaly defend with... arguably I could have even found a fold on the river given that logic, escaping for an even smaller loss... but it was so cheap!
Should my preflop be tighter when faced with limp/callers - let's be honest, irrespective of how the hand played out, I was behind pre-flop if we assume that Ax and pairs form a good chunk of a limp / callers starting hands - or broadway cards which mean I could just as easily hit a K and be dominated in the hand?
Obviously this particular occasion was just unfortunate, but the amount of limp/callers at this level hurts my head and I'm sure ends up costing me more than I win from them due to the amount of pots I raise with less than premium hands - more so when there are 2 or more limpers and I feel a duty to punish them!
Managed to drop a few quid on virtually the first hand of the night AK < A5 vs a maniac that could easily have had worse on the A-high board... then nearly got my head above water but made a few poor plays and got deseveredly punished for raising rags again (Js6s on button vs 2 limpers, GII on flop of QJ6 rainbow and virtually dead vs Q6 - cold flop, but yet again no reason to have any money in that pot preflop).
One confusing spot was vs a shortie that had recently taken a beat and was going to be shoving all sorts, certainly worse than KQ (albeit, in this case, he actually was ahead pre)... but at cash should I be folding this, given there are others left to act?
Once I have called pre, is there any sense in betting the flop or should I be happy to check down a mid strength hand like I have?
Pretty high variance session last night, which I eventually came out on top of.
I'll be honest, there were some (maybe lots) sarcastic 'lol nh' type comments through the early session, where I kept seeing 40-80% of my stack sucked out on through an endless barrage of rotten river cards... had to watch running cards drop twice, once for a backdoor flush and once with top set vs bottom two (to split with a straight on board).
A few cases of staring at the ceiling then when a known maniac sat at my table and I started hitting everything, only for him/her to have seemingly completely changed their game from the last 20+ times I've played against them and folding flop for pretty small c-bets.
But luckily variance came in the right spots for once and I had a couple of just-over-a-BI pots later in the session where I was the one getting lucky - flopping a set KK /> AA and hitting my flush draw getting it in AA vs low set on the turn are two that immediately spring to mind.
I think overall my game was definitely helped by having re-visited 6-max 3-bet strategy, via a couple of articles online (2+2 and some other forum I now forget the name of). I think that overall this was making my game more aggressive in the right spots and will continue to try and work with this over the weekend to see if I can continue to keep getting into good spots.
My advice - Get in as much volume as possible and start playing 20nl when you hit 1k. Think you will be surprised how quickly your BR will grow. GL
I'm sure there will be one last session of the month to come, but the Froch v Groves fight will limit how much.
Rotten first session last night, exaccerbated by losing probably £20 or so with just plain bad calls... it's still a big weakness that I end up calling lots of times when there are 20-30BB left on the river into a pot well in excess of 100BB - I know I'm going to be beat and oppo has got there on the river, but unless it's the most blatant of boards (ie 4 or 5 to a flush that in a suit I'm not holding) I still pay off that rivered set/2 pr and kid myself that 'enough of the time it'll be a bluff and I'm getting odds in the long run'.
I'm not. It's micro stakes. It's never a bluff. I'm just wasting my money when I should sigh-fold.
The second session started with a bang, when I went through a spot of AA, AA, QQ in consecutive hands at NL8 and the player to my right kindly donated the majority / all of their stack to me each time.
I was on the verge of posting a win for the day, when later in that session I got it in pre for 100BB AA v QQ... alas the Q hit and what could have been an escape with around a fiver profit, ended the day with £11 loss.
Can't really grumble though - if I'd played even a couple of hands better in the first session I'd have saved that amount and broken even, so no-one to blame but myself.
So, I ran OK two days ago and made it north of £860 again with a +2 BI day... then came offline for an hour or so coaching with Lambert180... then applying that learning (or trying!) saw me drop around 2xBI each session yesterday lol
In truth though the coaching session was really useful - despite my efforts and having gotten the occasional (normally half drunk) SNG going among some of my friends and family, no-one I know is really into poker and it's therefore not a topic I ever get to discuss with others. So even aside from everything else it was a huge help just to be able to talk things through with someone else that also loves the game and evidently can happily chat poker for a good length of time!
Lambert has the bonus of having spent such a decent time, still relatively recently, at the levels that many of us on here (including me) are trying not just to consistently beat but also to gain an increasing enjoyment for through learning and improving our game.
That experience obviously adds that much more credence to the advice on offer and provides useful logic to apply when back at the tables.... I'm having phone connection issues at the moment (would never happen if I still had an iPhone!) but if I could I'd be adding the picture to show the 'bet' / 'fold' reminder stickers that were added to the side of my laptop yesterday.
From a technical aspect, the method of reviewing hands on Sky / join me screen made it a bit challenging to card read at times. A lot of middling-cards were blurred such that it was hard to distinguise 2/5/6/9 - plus obviously it's not as sophisticated as the tools available on other sites where you can replay the hand one action at a time... I don't know that there is a way around that though, short of having recorded the hand live and somehow then being able to use that clip... perhaps I need to have a play with that myself one day!
And from a personal point of view, I hadn't realised how many hands I'd (foolishly) put up that had the legendary BAGGPUSS at my table... as much as Lambert's coaching was useful to improve my overall game, the dynamics of being at those tables invariably made for incorrect 'standard' micro cash play... at least that's my excuse for (rightly in the context of the coaching) having my mistakes flagged in those hands
So thank you very much to Lambert for donating his time to help steer me back on to the right course - I hope from your side you also saw it as a useful way to spend some of his time, be it from a coaching point of view (which I'm sure from my experience you will do a great job at, potentially building a well-earned supplement to the poker income) and / or from a self-learning point of view... I know from experience at work that sometimes my own skills are sharpened just by getting to coach others in a subject, so hopefully you get the same benefit from your first formal experience of coaching a (hopefully improving) poker novice!
Anyway... The losses yesterday were down to a different leak, perhaps pushing a bit too hard on the river and taking the 'bet for value' mantra too far. Will post a couple of examples of this on the next post to seek opinion to confirm / recommend alternative strategy etc.
Or am I way off and are these spots where I shouldn't be value betting at all??
PS - a spot prize of micro-stakes kudos to anybody that can nail both oppo hands!!
Hand 1 - OK so the flop gives loads of options for what the villain could have - flush draws, straight draws, Kx - could even be peeling with a mid PP... turn card helps me but I don't think sees folds from anything apart from maybe the mid PP... then the river at the time I felt like I may still get paid by Kx (especially if K5/K4) and may get a call from Ahxh.... thoughts?
And yes, looking back, turn bet should have been bigger.
Check/call would have been my sigh-option out of position... do things not change when I'm in position and it has been checked round to me, a final piece of weakness from both oppos that means I could have the best hand (and at least one worse hand that can call)?
Disappointingly I just realised that what I initially thought was a small + day, is actually another -1BI because I forgot to log last month's reward payment
It's been a real challenge the last couple of days to be a 'believer' and give up on hands far easier than I previously was... I spend most of the session mentally beating myself up that the continuing donk bets, check raises or bets where I don't cbet/cbet but give up turn can't ALWAYS be good and maybe the other players, for all the loose/stationy tendancies, have started to adjust to my reduced aggression and are now marking me as the fish.
That said, my discipline is holding in the most part. The only drip of note was calling with 3rd pair against someone who I was convinced was at it - the fact that shortly afterwards I was all in vs him on the flop with AA vs no pair no draw made me think it wasn't the worst of plays.
The pkr gods were otherwise super harsh on AA last night, not so much for me but across the tables I was on. I did have one cracked when getting all in on the turn vs QQ and getting rivered... but this was somewhat harsly evened up when KK v AA pre saw me turn a set vs an oppo that had been stacked in exactly the same way barely a couple of hands earlier - that was just sick and I genuinely felt harsh for that.
Ah well - plus side is that (I think) I've managed to add in a few useful notes that may help me to sneak a few quid back in the coming weeks... fingers crossed!
Not going to lie, the numbers speak for themselves and I did run golden yesterday, even allowing for KK < QQ for 120BB or so early in the evening. I think more importantly, I ran up in excess of 300PP which is indicative of putting in some (for me) long sessions where I think my decision making held up for all but the last ten mins or so - although even then, I'd dropped all but the softest tables with the plan to 'go to bed when the easiest spot stops reloading' (and stuck by that).
At the risk of upsetting those I sat with, the best part of my game was table selection and as much as the cards did help, being in position against weaker opponents makes it so much easier to benefit from that vs being surrounded by regs. As more micro-regs replaced defeated fish, so I was seeking new spots to replace tables as opposed to fight on with tougher spots. Bumhunters aren't really as bad as people make out
Another foray into the NL10 MC was the one table that lasted throughout, with an interesting shift in dynamic. To start with I had immediate position on two good players (CraigSG and Larson) with three weaker players to my left - so a bit more 3-betting those behind and opening those in front (knowing I wouldn't be facing many tough decisions pre-flop)... then over time it evolved as the Craig and Larson left - Craig had position on Larson and stood up the first hand after Larson left... I can only assume that means he saw Larson as his 'spot'!
Then I had Hypeting and Dontelmum take position on me, but weak players sit to my right, taking away how many CO/MP opens I was able to sneak through, but making it easy to keep building my stack from taking on the limpers.
So a new high for the roll, if I can keep the momentum going then a bit more NL20 toe-dipping will be added to the mix (...not the Dane Bowers/Jordan type of toe-dipping)
Hand of the night is without question 7-6!