Week 18

Really good cash game results.  Failed to make the final table in the tourney.  Let's talk tourney first:

Ran bad when AT>KK all-in pre-flop, especially when, right before the river, players to my left and right both said they folded and A, and the dealer proceeded to river the case A!  Then I had AK>QQ, but thankfully not cost me my tourney.  I shoved a few times to steal the blinds, and was finally called the 3rd time when I shoved A8o and was called by 66 and lost the race.

Results: -$45, 15/31

Cash game:

I arrived early and was able to get 2.25 hours in before the tourney.  I continued to chart my hands this week, and so far, it's given me some luck.  I have yet to lose a big pot.  Although this time, I got the money in with the right odds in spots, but not necessarily the favourite to win with one card to come.

I played another hour and 15 minutes after the tourney and both ran really good, and got somewhat unlucky.

I'll start with unlucky...  After I was eliminated from the tourney, they had enough players to start a 2nd 1/2 NLHE table.  This was a "must move" table, so whenever an opening happened in the main game, that seat needed to be filled.  Now Sycuan is lax with some rules (see this post about what constitutes a bet), so they are lax with this one.  First they will ask the "must move" table if anyone wants to voluntarily move.  Then they'll occasionally ask the player waiting to be seated if they'd prefer to be in the main game.  After that, they'll force the top-of-the-list player from the "must move" to the main game (which is usually what you will see elsewhere).  After 16 hands at the "must move" table, I get called to the main game.  In hand 17 at the "must move" table, they hit the bad beat jackpot!  :(  Loser of the hand won $5300, winner of the hand won $2650, and the 6 remaining players split $5300 ($883).  Yeah, I missed out on almost $900 because of a table change...

However, as unlucky as that was, I didn't lose any money in the process.  So, I played in the main game, and ran hot again, mostly at the expense of one player, who I got all-in on 3 different hands in the span of an orbit.  Flopped top-bottom 2 pair in a straddled pot, where I filled up on the turn and the player "said" he had top-two on the flop.  If it's true, it's probably the only time in the past two weeks I've really got my money in bad in a big pot.  The next time, in a cash splash pot (extra $50 added to the pot), he put the rest of his money in, $32, and I raised to $75 to isolate with AJo and won (he had ATo).  Finally, he straddled the button, and I raised from the SB with AKo, and he shoved for $100, and I called and my AK>JJ.

So, in the first 2.25 hours, I won $464 and in the last 1.25 hours I won $449.

Here is the link to the spreadsheet, with the new tab for 5/13/2014.  Here are some analyses:

1. My hand distribution was good starting hand heavy again.  I should have an average of 5.75 hands per 5% bucket, but I've got 8 top bucket and 33% of my hands with in the top 25% of starting hands.
2. I did not get my good hands in good positions, yet I still won raised pots with them, mostly on the flop.  KK and AJs in the BB raised and cbet and won on flop, QQ in the SB (although straddled pot made it easier to raise larger and win a bigger pot outright at the beginning), AKo in the SB (again straddled, and won the race against JJ).
3. I didn't have a failed multi-street bluff.  The only bluffs I lost were getting my cbets check-raised on the flop.  I think reducing my PF raises is helping me not get into many situations where I need to bluff medium strength hands out, because my hand would be weak against their range.
4. I saw only 4 3-bets: KK, KQo, JJ, and ??.  The ?? hand ended with the 3-bettor betting the flop and taking it down.
5. I didn't suffer a bad beat or suckout again.
6. I like the distribution of the hands I played.  I was tight in the first few positions, and played a lot looser in late.  I was a little tighter in the SB than I was last week, and I am comfortable now with the amount of hands I'm playing out of the BB.

I'll chart my hands one more week and see if anything is different and decide to continue from there.  I hope that should I start on a bad streak again, I should remember to chart again, as I find it makes me think of the hand a little longer, and actually keeps my focus better on the game, rather than the TVs.

Results so far:

+675 1/2 NLHE
+25 3/6 LHE
+315 Tourney
+200 Promos
-8.50 food
= +1206.5 profit

More Sycuan Notes

I'm 17 weeks into my WSOP main event qualifier tourney series at Sycuan.  I've racked up 6 final tables so far (average # players / tourney = ~35).  The first final table appearance gives me an entry to the semi-final of my choice (6 available days, I chose June 17th) with a 5k starting stack, and the next 5 entries have given me an additional 1k chips to start with.  You can max out your starting stack at 10k, which is what I have managed to do.  My next final table will give me a second 5k starting stack on a different day,

The tourney on its own has been profitable to the tune of $360, which has been an added bonus (one outright win, and several chops).  Here's the breakdown

-238 1/2 NLHE
+25 3/6 LHE
+360 Tourney
+200 Promos
-8.50 food
= +338.5 profit

Yes, I sat in a 3/6 limit hold'em game while I waited for my seat in the NLHE game.  I hate waiting and doing nothing.

The NLHE loss is deceiving because it doesn't look as bad as it did on Monday before I booked a 1k win in the game.  The previous 4 weeks had been VERY volatile and VERY negative: lose big, lose big, win big, lose big.

So this week, I set out to try something different.  I had seen poker pro David Williams talk about doing this once in a tournament: write down every starting hand dealt, and try and capture general information if you play the hand.  So that's what I did, and here are the results.

It becomes pretty clear why I was able to win as much as I did:

1. My hand distribution was good starting hand heavy.  I should have an average of 8.9 hands per 5% bucket, but I've got 10, 12, 10 in the top 3 buckets.
2. I got my good hands in good position.  I got AA and JJ (twice) on the button and was able to raise and create (and win) big pots with them.  Getting AA under-the-gun and raising and getting 4 callers, really makes it awkward to play against players who can have anything (unless you flop a set).
1. Conversely, I got a lot of my bad hands in bad position, and it was easy to muck.
2. I didn't have many middle strength hands that are "fun to play" but generally get me in trouble.
3. I didn't have a failed bluff.  I run a lot of bluffs.  Mostly because the players there won't call without strong hands.  I was fortunate that I never ran into that in this session.  Losing those bluffs makes future ones more difficult to run, and tilts me, because I still try and run them...
4. I had strong bluff catchers that were able to call raises out of position and bets on all 3 streets.
5. My opponents were not 3-betting much, and when they were, they almost always had AA.
6. I didn't suffer a bad beat or suckout (the JJ hand I win vs the flush draw is an example).  The week before I had AA and KK cracked in huge pots.

So, while I'm happy with the results, I see that I was fortunate: good hands in good position, good bluffs in good spots, and no tilt inducing events.

Looking at these stats, there are some things I need to work on:

1. I still played too many hands PF.  I should really trim some of my garbage holdings like weak suited cards or weak Aces out of my playing range.
2. In general, I don't tend to limp as much as I did in this session.  But the problem is, I was usually raising those marginal+weak hands and creating bloated pots.  At least I improved on not raising those.  Next is to simply fold them.
3. I defend from the SB and BB a tad too much.  There are very few outright folds.  And while it seems like it was profitable this session, it doesn't seem sustainable.
4. I'm not a good value bettor.  I am always afraid of betting too much and having people fold and so I feel that I miss out on cash here and there.

If any of you readers think I should examine any other pattern, let me know in the comments.  I'm going to try and do this again next week.