Puppy and CR

So last Saturday, my wife and I went and picked up our new puppy. We had gone to petsmart the weekend before to look at puppies because we were interested in saving a dog rather than purchasing one from a breeder. We found a dog there that we liked, but after some more looking my wife found one she liked even more. His name is Tucker Wynn, and he is a lab/retriever mix. He's quite the handful, but he is learning very quickly what is right and wrong.

As for poker, any of you who are CardRunners members may have seen on their website today that I will be one of their new instructors. I'm looking forward to it very much, as I enjoy coaching no matter if it's poker or golf. My first video will come out in a couple of weeks, when that happens I may move the blog over to the CR site but I'm not 100% sure yet. The only thing I know so far about the video is that it will be me 4 tabling 1/2 on FTP.

As far as actually playing poker this month, its pretty depressing despite being up $13k at 2/4. I'm down 12 buy ins at 3/6 and spewed 6 buy ins off at 5/10 on the 1st day of the month. Oh well, the 5/10 session was atrocious and I really just try to hard when I'm playing there. The 3/6 results... meh just not winning many hands. I've been playing quite well the last few days tho and I'll post some of the more fun/interesting hands.

No-Limit Hold'em, $4.00 BB (6 handed) - Hold'em Manager Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

UTG ($606.50)

MP ($530)

CO ($400)

Button ($144)

Hero (SB) ($551.50)

BB ($400)

Preflop: Hero is SB with K♠, K♣

1 fold, MP bets $12, 2 folds, Hero calls $10, BB raises $44, MP raises $96, Hero raises $539.50 (All-In), BB calls $352 (All-In), MP calls $422 (All-In)

Flop: ($1460) 4♦, 6♣, 10♠ (3 players, 3 all-in)

Turn: ($1460) 3♠ (3 players, 3 all-in)

River: ($1460) 9♣ (3 players, 3 all-in)

Total pot: $1460

Results:

Hero had K♠, K♣ (one pair, Kings).

BB had A♥, K♥ (high card, Ace).

MP had J♥, J♦ (one pair, Jacks).

Outcome: Hero won $1478.50

Why you never fold KK pre. But seriously. The opener is a TAG regular who probably isn't going to be playing back at me a lot, and probably not expecting me to play back at him super light. Since were 125bbs deep I decided to just flat, also the BB was squeeze happy from what I've seen from him so far so I decided to let him do his thing. He obliges and now the original opener 4 bets. His range here is probably JJ+/AK and with all the money in the middle I just decide to ship. I get called very quickly by both players and I'm pleasantly surprised to see I'm in the lead. Sick hold imo.

No-Limit Hold'em, $4.00 BB (4 handed) - Hold'em Manager Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

BB ($1457.15)

Hero (UTG) ($805.50)

Button ($421.15)

SB ($763.65)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with 4♣, 4♦

Hero bets $16, 2 folds, BB raises $60, Hero calls $48

Flop: ($130) 7♦, 8♠, 9♦ (2 players)

BB bets $66, Hero raises $160, BB calls $94

Turn: ($450) 4♠ (2 players)

BB checks, Hero bets $580.75, BB calls $580.75

River: ($1611.50) 8♣ (2 players)

Total pot: $1611.50

Results:

BB had K♠, 9♠ (two pair, nines and eights).

Hero had 4♣, 4♦ (full house, fours over eights).

Outcome: Hero won $1612.50

Bink! Villain in this hand likes to 3 bet a decent amount, I flat obviously with 44 because we are deep. The flop comes very connected and drawy. I decide to bluff raise here, my hand is not ideal for it but combine the fact that this guy 3 bets quite a bit, and the board is very scary it's going to be tough for him to continue with many hands because he will be oop on a scary board with a lot of money behind. I bink the turn obviously, and I just decide to overbet jam and rep a draw, he calls relatively quickly with K9 and I have him drawing dead in the 400bb pot. One thing of note is that I would probably give up bluffing the turn on bricks.

No-Limit Hold'em, $4.00 BB (6 handed) - Hold'em Manager Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

CO ($714.50)

Button ($394.30)

Hero (SB) ($839.30)

BB ($407.60)

UTG ($412.90)

MP ($630)

Preflop: Hero is SB with J♦, A♠

2 folds, CO bets $12, 1 fold, Hero calls $10, 1 fold

Flop: ($28) 5♠, 8♦, 10♠ (2 players)

Hero checks, CO bets $20, Hero raises $70, CO calls $50

Turn: ($168) J♣ (2 players)

Hero checks, CO bets $130, Hero calls $130

River: ($428) 7♠ (2 players)

Hero bets $627.30 (All-In), 1 fold

Total pot: $428

Results:

Hero had J♦, A♠ (one pair, Jacks).

Outcome: Hero won $1052.30

Ok this is probably the most interesting hand that I've played recently. Villain is a reg, who coolers me non-stop. I flat his open pre, don't really like 3 betting this hand because of how deep we are. The flop is pretty raggedy, he cbets and I decide to c/r with 2 over, the back door nutflush draw, and some back door straight draw. Villain flats. I turn a J, and I decide to c/c. The river comes the 7s, and I just decide to turn my hand into a bluff and shove. I'm trying to rep something like 8x, Jx of spades and I think it's going to be pretty tough for him to call me with hands like sets, two pairs, and overpairs. I don't think many villains are going to be putting me on a bluff when I take this line, and I think this is going to be more +EV than c/c'ing(puke) or c/f'ing.

A little more on the HH I posted last time

So I've been doing a ton of thinking and number crunching since I saw Nick's comment on my last blog which made me itch my head a little bit. Here is the comment

Nick said...

As a side note, just because you only have 45% equity against his calling range doesn't mean shoving isn't the best option. If you have 26% equity against his shoving range if you check, shoving here will be better than c/f even if you're only ahead 33% when called.

Ok, so at first I was confused because I was pretty sure you needed to have more than 50% equity on the river for value betting to be correct. After doing some quick numbers it looked like Nick was correct but I was still very skeptical. I've been out running errands all day and every so often I would think about this at it was driving me pretty crazy, damn you Nick... ha just kidding, thanks for the comment that really made me think. Also thanks to TJ for your comment a definitely look back through your HH's every so often to look for spots like this.

After doing some more work, what I've realized is that Nick is correct in some scenarios where shoving is going to be better than c/f'ing even when we have less than 50% equity. But those situations come up when you are afraid of c/f'ing the best hand some of the time which I'm not really afraid of in this spot, although admittedly I'm not 100% sure what Padirk will do with the 6 combos of AK he gets to the river with if I check.

Anyway here is what I did. I basically broke down villains range for getting to the river. He gets to the river by my best estimation with 26 combos.

6 combos of AK

3 combos of KQs

3 combos of KK

6 combos of QQ

3 combos of JJ

3 combos of TT

and 2 combos of KJs.

So we are ahead of 15 of those combos and lose to 11 of them. Lets assume he calls with all the hands we beat except QQ. So then we get 6 combos of folds, 9 combos of called by worse, and 11 combos of called by better. This is assuming about as wide of a calling range as we can give him(probably too wide for this particular player)

EV= ((6/26)*570) + ((9/26)*570+397) + ((11/26)*-397) = $298

Ok, and then the EV of checking assuming that he checks back all worse(never bluffs/never value bets worse) is

EV= ((15/26)*570) = $329

This is about as simple as we can make this calculation, so as you can see c/f'ing is about $29 better than shoving. And both are way better than c/c'ing. If you are wondering what the EV of c/c'ing is with our above assumptions is

EV= ((15/26)*570) + ((11/26)*-397) = $161.

The really tricky part of all of this is figuring out what he's going to do realistically with those 26 combos on the river. My best guess is that he folds all of his QQ, KQs and maybe hero folds 2 of the 6 combos of AK. So now we are at 11 combos that fold to our shove, 4 that call and lose, and still the 11 that call and win.

EV= ((11/26)*570) + ((4/26)*570+397) + ((11/26)*-397) = $222

Now we have to guesstimate what he is going to do with AK when we check. This is the most important part of everything because this will decide whether to shove, c/f, or even (gasp!) c/c.

My best guess is that he shoves at most 1/2 or 3 of the AK combos he gets to the river with, and never turns a hand into a bluff. So now the EV of c/f'ing the river is

EV= ((12/26)*570) = $263

And even with him shoving 3 combos of AK that we beat c/c'ing the river is

EV= ((12/26)*570) + ((11/26)*-397) + ((3/26)*570 + 397) = $207.

So in general it appears that check/folding the river is always going to be the best play vs this player given the above tendencies. With all of my number crunching I don't think I ran into a scenario where shoving was the most + EV play however. So I'm still not sure what Nick is referring to. Maybe Nick you could post a scenario? My brain is a bit too fried to go through the scenario you described above with regards to the 26% and 33% equity.

The only scenario I've come up with where shoving is better than c/c'ing is when c/c'ing then becomes the best option. And that comes up when I think the player will hero fold 2 of his combos of AK when I shove into him, but valueshove the 6 of his combos of AK when checked too.

Those EV's look like this

Shove = ((11/26)*(570))+((4/26)*(570+397))+((11/26)*(-397)) = $222

C/F = ((9/26)*(570)) = $197

C/C = ((12/26)*570)+((11/26)*-397)+((4/26)*(570+397)) = $253

Ok. phewwwwwwwwwww that was a lot of work. I'm out. If anyone finds and discrepancies or problems leave a comment. Later.

Tax Season :(

So, I'm wrapping up my taxes and it is pretty depressing. Last year sucked because I didn't really anticipate the upcoming tax deadline, and this year is much the same even though I know I should have been preparing and setting aside money well in advance. Oh well. Hopefully I will learn this time.

Anyway, April is going pretty well considering I lost $6k on the first day spewing at 5/10. Since then I have played strictly 2/4 and 3/6 and also tried to cut down on the number of tables I'm playing. I think I would rather sacrifice a small %(if any) of my hourly for a slightly higher winrate(resulting generally in less variance which is always nice).

I'm going to try and keep my sessions to 6 tables and a maximum of 8 if the games are really good. I had been trying to play 8-10 at all times and that just doesn't work as well for me. With 6 I am very confident. It's when I get to 8 or 10 tables and something goes wrong when I generally get into trouble. What seems to happen a lot is something bad happens or I make a mistake, and then simultaneously I have another difficult decision/thin spot and what happened 3 seconds ago affects my decision making skills. With 6 tables this scenario is a bit less likely to happen and will probably result in less spew from me.

An interesting HH I played today....

No-Limit Hold'em, $6.00 BB (6 handed) - Hold'em Manager Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

BB ($2014.90)

UTG ($729)

MP ($679.05)

CO ($1386.15)

Button ($669.05)

Hero (SB) ($1310)

Preflop: Hero is SB with A♥, A♠

1 fold, MP bets $21, 2 folds, Hero raises $69, 1 fold, MP calls $51

Flop: ($150) K♣, 7♥, 5♦ (2 players)

Hero bets $70, MP calls $70

Turn: ($290) 10♥ (2 players)

Hero bets $140, MP calls $140

River: ($570) J♠ (2 players)

Hero checks, MP bets $397.05 (All-In), Hero folds

Total pot: $570

Ok so villain in this hand is a 22/14 reg who is a little tighter than most post flop. So he opens in MP and I 3 bet him from the blinds. The flop is very dry and I just make a standard cbet of about 1/2 ish pot. The turn is meh, and again I bet 1/2ish pot planning to shove most rivers. However the river is a J, which in my eyes is a pretty bad river for me. KJs and JJ both get there.

So now I'm like, crap. Here I that shoving was just not going to be +EV for me. If I were to give villain a range for getting to the river it would look something like, KK, QQ, TT, JJ, KJs, KQs, AK. Against that particular range(which we actually want to look at his calling range, so I think we can remove QQ from his calling range because he probably folds that a significant portion of the time) I have 45% equity which is not enough for me to profitably value bet the river, and this is assuming he calls me with every single combo of AK and KQ that he gets to the river with which I'm not even sure is the case because I think the J can act as a bit of a scare card for him as there are not a lot of hands that I'm shoving that he beats anymore.

Now some might be wondering well how come you don't c/c the river? In my opinion, if I check to the villain on this river he is going to play pretty straightforwardly and not turn a lot of hands into bluffs. I don't think he's going to shove KQ, or QQ and quite possibly not all of the combos of AK. So lets just say he only shoves AK 3/4ths of the time. The flop is also so dry, that is really really difficult for him to show up with air here.

Against his river shoving range of all the hands that beat us, and some of the AK combos we only have 31% equity. Now its $397 for us to call and the pot is $570 + his $397 all in. So $397/($570+397+397) = 29%. So we need 29% equity to make a break even call but we only have 26% equity against his range. Therefore I think c/f is the best play in this scenario. Obviously this would change if the flop texture was a little more conducive to him have possibly more hands that he could shove as a bluff.

Also just to show how big of a difference that river J has vs a blank, if you change the Js to the 3s and give him the same range of getting to the river I have like 75% equity. I also think if the river is a 3s it makes him a little bit more likely to call my shove with KQ, and maybe even QQ/JJ some of the time which would make it an easy shove. I think a lot of people would just shove it in here and hope for the best, but I think through some solid analysis and reasons to believe your opponent will play certain hands in their range a particular way you can avoid making these medium mistakes that will go a long way to improving your results.

Later.

Tiger Tiger Tiger

It's finally here. He's finally back. LETS GO TIGERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

My prediction.... gonna go bold

Tiger by 4 finishing at (EDITED Thursday morning) -8

As for poker, blah. I started off the month not playing that great, spewed 6 buy ins at 5/10 on the first of the month. Grinded hard all week to finally get in the green during my latest session. I waste all of my run good at 2/4.

Finally, a Desk! Pics and March Recap.

 

Well I finally got my desk today, which is exciting because I no longer have to 6 table on my laptop while sitting on my couch. I ordered it almost 3 weeks ago and after some problems, it was finally delivered today. Weeee.

Here’s a pic of my setup.

Now the cool thing about this desk is that I can raise and lower it at the touch of a button. I think its range is anywhere from 24” to 52” off the ground, which is awesome because sometimes I get tired of sitting so now I can stand and play poker if I’d like.

Sitting mode

Standing mode

Pretty awesome if you ask me. Now I was waiting for the desk so I could also put up pictures of the new condo my wife and I just moved into. Its a pretty spacious 1600 sq. ft, 2 bedroom, 2 bath. We bought all new furniture just before we got married and have been receiving bits and pieces of it every week since we got back from the honeymoon. The desk was the last piece of the puzzle, so here goes.

Right when you walk in, look to the left and you get the living room.

Living room, shot from kitchen. The left side of this picture is where you enter the condo.

To the right as you walk in is the master bedroom.

Master bedroom, different angle.

Master bath, there is a huge walk in closet behind that door.

Master bath, garden tub and walk in shower. Toilet is across from the shower behind a corner.

A look at the kitchen, which is just to the right of the living room as you walk in. Breakfast area to the left.

Kitchen again

My office

 

Guest bathroom

Guest bedroom, converted into golf room.

Obligatory Lil’ Wayne poster. Picture taken by my wife at a concert  we went to.

 

As for poker. March started off sooooooooooo bad. I just look at this graph and laugh because for the first 30K+ hands I was breakeven in showdown winnings. Wow was I running bad. Coming back from the wedding/honeymoon break and being a bit rusty probably didn’t help either. It took about a week to knock off the rust and the runbad, and then I think around the 19th things just took off. All in all, can’t be to unhappy. I did eclipse the $10k mark if I include rakeback, and I’m proud of how I was able to bounce back during the last 1/3rd of the month.

Well that’s all I got for now. Run good at life everyone.