Running cold...

Things have not gone well over the last week as I have lost $335.30 since my last report over 2538 hands of PLO and 100nl. I was due a downturn in profit as I have run fairly well over the last 5-6 weeks. It does affect your confidence which in turn affects the way you play. Sometimes I can swing into huge loss with very loose aggressive play. Other times I will become very passive losing my ability to win pots due to agrression without showdown.

I'm going to review some of my big losing sessions and the big pots I lost and see if a major leak has opened up in my game or if it was just bad luck that I have lost over the last week. I am also moving back to 50nl until I find my problem. Bankroll...$5302.70

I also went to Caesar's Indiana on Monday (President's Day) and played for about 7 hours. I played very well for the first 5 hours and very poorly the last 2 hours. Getting out to play live, especially when I drive 90 minutes to play, I have a hard time leaving when the game goes bad or I start to play poorly.

I was getting cold decked for the first 3 hours or so and found myself a $450 loser, but I had actually played fairly well. I believe my problem came as I showed a bluff to a decent player who played most of the pots out of position to me. I had made more PF raises than anyone at the table by a wide margin, and had received very little resistance. I generally raised to $10-12 PF and would make a $20 contiuation bet after the flop. The decent player usually made a reluctant fold...and then on about the 3rd-4th time, he disgustingly folded 10 10 face up on a J85 board to my continuation bet with (8h7h). It really showed how digusted he was, and I hoped to make a big hand as I know he was about to play back at me.

Then the following hand occurs...he limps first in and I raise with (Qs10s) in late position...everyone else folds and the flop comes out very coordinated...I'm not exactly sure but something like 6h7h4c. With his PF limping this flop is likely to have connected with his hand, but I'm going to stick with my normal play, and make a continuation bet of $20. He gives me the disgusted look and raises just to $45...a virtual minimum raise. Almost 100% of the time you can polarize the range of hands the player holds when he makes this play...super strong or very weak. For some reason, it just smelled weak to me and I shuffled my chips while deciding what to do. (95%+ of the time I fold here) but I decide to set this guy on tilt by bluffing and showing. So I piece together my chips into a stack of $135...raising him another $90 on top. He insta-folded and I flopped Qs10s face up while I raked the chips. I know he had me even it was by a narrow margin, but it's always great to pull off a big bluff.

However, from that point forward the rest of the table gave me very little respect, so I had a difficult time winning pots without having to showdown my hands. The best player at the table, besides myself (lol), sat directly on my right. I had raised 3 consecutive hands PF and on the 4th hand I get 10 10 UTG and I raise to $10....it folds all the way around to the BB, the best player, and he re-raises to $35. I have played a few sessions with him and know he is capable of making a play against me. Looking back now, knowing I have position on him...I could have 4-bet PF and possibly lost less money. But I called his $25 raise and we see the flop.

The flop came Js8s4c and he leads out for $40....smallish considering the $71 in the pot. So I now add AK and AQ to his range and after 2-3 minutes of shuffling my chips, I decide to raise to $110 and he tanks on me...asking me questions about hitting a set, flush drawing, etc and I just stare at the dealer without trying to move. I now know I'm beat, but I have given myself an opportunity to win the pot by putting pressure on him. It's a costly way to find out, but if I continue to call I never know and he probably gets my entire stack. Another play would be to call the $40...but the implied odds of that play do not equate to a (+EV) play as we both had around $350 stack before the hand.

So after 2-3 minutes of deliberation he moves all-in. I tanked for another 2-3 minutes, making it look good, but I was never going to call the additional $200. This knocked me back to about $200 so I added another $100 to get me back to the $300 max buy-in. Oh yeah, he showed me KK after I folded... ;)

I have several more hands to discuss from this live session but they will come later in the week. Live poker is an entirely different animal as the play is much more passive, and hyper-aggression can really backfire on that style of play. I believe it can be very profitable to just sit back and play premium hands and position in this game. A good example is the following hand...(one more hand to discuss)

I live straddle the button for $5 and we get 6 callers and I check my option with Qd5d. The flop comes...727 and it checks all the way around. The turn is a Q and a nitty player in middle position bets $10 and it folds to me who raises to $35. All others fold and the nit calls my $25 raise. (red flag) The river is an innocent 10 and he checks and I check behind. I hope to get a chop and he shows 22, getting no value from his quality hand. Of course, I help him out. My appearance of loose play was going to get me paid at some point. That comes tomorrow maybe...

"Birdiemachine"