Good fold

So I was playing 1/2 NLHE at Snake's Poekr club last night (www.snakespoker.com). It's a nice place with good staff about 20-30 minutes from my place. I'd already lost 1 buy-in when I limped with Ac7c and the board came 762-7. The table was loose/passive, so I'd be limping with hands that would make me the nuts if I hit. I bet my TPTK on the flop from EP and was called by a LP 2 to my left and a LAG across the table, who would come along with *any* draw or piece of the flop. The LAG had position on both of us, so when the second 7 hit on the turn, I checked fully expecting the LAG to bet. Instead the LP moved all-in for $30 to a $30ish pot. LAG called. WTF? Not what I was expecting, but since I had $155 behind, I was pretty sure I was ahead of LAG and behind LP. The question is whether LAG would call a raise from me. I tested the waters and moved all-in. If he folds, then I'll see that I can make some over-the-top moves on him, but I'm pretty sure I'm rooting for a call here with his second best. That's exactly what I got. LAG turns over K7 for second best to me (the side pot is $240 between us, and the main pot is $120). LP turns over 66 for a well played flopped set. The K on the river spoils the fun and LAG scoops the pot, causing me to rebuy.

This is important for the next hand, because I think I'm running a little scared of losing another stack. This time, I'm in 6th position, with mostly newer players at the table. A couple of limpers come in, and I raise to $12 with QdQh. Folds to the SB who raises it to $27. He's been somewhat active with the betting, but not 3-betting. We both have about $275 total. It folds back to me. I'm trying to figure out what he'd 3-bet me with here. Obviously, AA/KK/AK are in his range. What else? AQ/AJ/AT? JJ/TT/99? Since there hasn't been a ton of 3-betting, I'm rating the first 3 hands highest weight, and the others a smaller possibility. So, I may have made a mistake not trying to define my hand here and re-raising, but I decide to call, and evaluate the flop. It comes 6c 2c 6s. Unfortunately, now things are fuzzy. I can't remember, if he bets and I call, or if I bet and he calls. I think it is the latter, because I remember wondering what kind of hand would he call here with. I'm now leaning more towards a float with Ax than anything else.

The turn comes the As. Dammit scare card to hell. Again I get fuzzy on the betting order, but now, I end up in a situation when I'm looking at a $50 bet to me, which I think is a check-raise and I really have to decide if I'm putting the rest of my $200 stack in or folding. In the end, I muck my QQ face up and I get him to turn over 44. Dammit. I never thought he would have played a hand like that in that manner.

So why is this a good fold? Well, I still think he makes that play with all the hands I've listed above, so him having an A is much more likely than having a pocket pair lower than mine. I went to ProPokerTools to validate my theory, and this is what I found:

What I assumed his range is: Aa, ak, aq, aj, at, 77, 88, 99, tt, jj, kk,
http://www.propokertools.com/simulations/show?b=6c+6s+2c+As&g=he&h1=Qd+Qh&h2=Aa%2C+ak%2C+aq%2C+aj%2C+at%2C+77%2C+88%2C+99%2C+tt%2C+jj%2C+kk%2C

What his new likely range is: Aa, ak, aq, aj, at, 44, 55, 77, 88, 99, tt, jj, kk,
http://www.propokertools.com/simulations/show?b=6c+6s+2c+As&g=he&h1=Qd+Qh&h2=Aa%2C+ak%2C+aq%2C+aj%2C+at%2C+44%2C+55%2C+77%2C+88%2C+99%2C+tt%2C+jj%2C+kk%2C

So, even though I'm actually ahead here in this specific case, the aggregate likelyhood of me winning that pot against his range is -EV or close to 0 due to the size of the pot already.

Only when I remove AT from his range do I really start to come out ahead. The tools don't let me add a percentage to his AT, as in he'll raise there with AT 50% of the time, just to reduce it's weight on the calculation. But, I can assume AT in this analysis is just the aggregate of all the other Ax hands he might be playing there.

Massive downswing

I haven't been blogging in a while because I've been on a massive downswing which wiped out most of my 2010 gains for the year. I'm still in the black, but the toll of the downswing just didn't make me want to talk about it.

The thing is, this is exactly when I should write. If I'm proud enough of my wins to write about them, I should be humble enough to enumerate my losses as well. I don't know if I'm going to exhaustively go through my losses, but to put it in perspective, I'm only up 1.5k on the year now after being up 13k at one point.

That said, an interesting hand came up last night playing 1/2 NLHE at an Indian Reservation card room that I'd like to analyze, but I don't think I could blog about it without a mea culpa on my recent absence first.

I'm back now, for good, bad and ugly.