Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve blogged. <ith grad school apps, and losing 1-2 weeks to bronchitis, and…. well, I haven’t been too busy to play, but I’ve felt too busy to post hands.
I’m running fairly flat in live play since mid-October (when I lost my day job). Of course the variance over 100 hours, about 3000 hands, is so ridiculously high as to render analysis of results meaningless. But there are certainly still leaks in my game, and downswings/sideswings are good times to address them — provided that I don’t overcompensate based on results and start “fixing” non-existent problems!
Two-barrel bluffing: Ed Miller made me do it
Ed Miller has been talking quite a bit about firing multiple barrels lately, both in one of his weekly Card Player articles and in “Three Simple Things an Average Small-Stakes Player Can Try to Make More Money.” I have some other thoughts on that latter article that I’d like to write up separately. Ed’s obviously a theoretically sound teacher and I’ve learned a great deal about the game from him. But virtually all NLHE advice is situationally dependent, and I worry that I’m picking bad moments for my increased 2-barrel frequency.
My results trying it have been awful lately, but some of that’s clearly just misfortune. I tried firing twice with AJ unimproved against a guy who called my PFR with 97s out of position, flopped top two pair, and filled up on the turn. Unless the guy was just really tight on the flop and I didn’t know it, I’m not sure that a 97x-9 board should have been a warning to slow down. However, the following hand makes me question if there’s something more systematic going wrong.
Hand history [C-1]
Gold Strike $1-2
Stacks: I have $154. Relevant opponent covers.
Opponent reads: No read that I recall on MP or limpers. LP is a somewhat large, fairly young African-American man in Seat 1. He’s been running pretty good and seems somewhat loose, but I haven’t seen him make any plays I’d consider real howlers.
Table image: I got to this table an hour or two before and have played one significant hand: a semi-steal from the hijack with A8 that flopped top pair of 8s. I made a tough shove for the rest of my $100 over an aggressive player’s check/raise. Other than that, I’ve been folding hands. I expect that my opponents perceive me as pretty tight.
Preflop
I’m in the SB with
Four limpers, I raise to $15, big blind folds, MP calls, other limpers fold, LP calls.
I expect this kind of action. SPR is a little over 3. I plan to commit profitably with most top pairs and continuation bet at least one round on most uncoordinated or semi-coordinated flops.
Flop ($45)
This flop isn’t too coordinated and doesn’t contain any queens or jacks, so it appears likely a continuation bet will take down the pot.
I bet $30, MP folds, LP calls.
Turn ($105)
The third spade has given me nine more outs to a probable winner and made the board look somewhat scarier unless my opponent has a spade draw. I estimate that a slightly less than half pot bet will likely take down the pot, and I have good equity if called.
I bet $45, LP raises to $100.
Oops. I must have been bluffing into a strong hand. I take several seconds to calculate. I estimate my outs to be somewhere between 3 (against something like As and a pair) to 7 (against a set) to 15 (against an overpair or top pair without an A or K, like Q9). Probably about 12 outs, such as against A9, is a fair estimate.
12 outs once is about 24% so I need 3:1 to call. The pot is offering me 250:55, so a call is trivially easy. Because I have only $9 behind I may as well shove. I’m not folding the river, ever.
I shove, LP calls.
River ($305)
blank
LP is convinced that I must have a winner since I called. I show my ace-high, and he shows Ac3c to win with a pair of treys.
Sixth street
LP says, “I just knew you had AK,” but when I called he was convinced he had misread me. I congratulated him on his stellar read. The issue of the spade draw only came up because I forgot what suits he had and asked if he had the ace of spades, which he denied. (Going by memory, I’m pretty sure he wasn’t lying.) I don’t think he realized that I had all those additional outs.
It’s hard to tell whether I’m just giving off an immense number of tells, whether my opponent was an intuitive poker genius who gets by on reads to make up for his lack of odds understanding, or whether he’s one of those loose fish who “just knows” his opponents always have one particular hand, usually AK when he makes any pair. I have to admit, I was a little shaken up by this hand, and actually talked a bit about it at the table after my opponent left. (This is a bad idea, and I should learn other ways to cope with losing tough hands.)
I’m not sure of the bottom two cards on the flop, but after the hand I decided a wheel draw was the most plausible explanation for his flop call. However, it may well be that he just called because he had an ace and felt lucky.
Running bad makes me reluctant to bluff
At the time I was +$50 for the session; I went on to end it -$131 after going down as much as $300. I know those swings are all small potatoes, and I totally get that it’s all one big session. But it’s psychologically difficult to bluff as often as I think is profitable, because my big semibluffs (especially the ones with big draws that involve shoving stacks in) seem to go wrong quite often lately. I’ve asked a couple of friends who’ve watched me play live to help identify tells. I think I’m pretty self-aware but it’s always plausible that something subtle may be escaping my attention.
Who knows whether he would have bet bottom pair if had check-called the turn, or for how much. But I probably wouldn’t have gotten stacked chasing my draw, and that’s hard to stomach.
Theoretically the difference between -$131 and +$174 is pretty insignificant in the long run of my poker career — just one more draw that did or didn’t come in. Psychologically, though, it’s a big difference in how I feel I’m running. Also, the denominator in my observed winrate (which date from the beginning of 2007) is 390 hours, so a draw coming in or not for $300 is a $0.75 swing in my observed winrate. When you’re trying to figure out if you’re any good and assess whether playing a lot of poker is worth your time, a few of these draws one way or another will affect your decision-making pretty dramatically.
So yeah, I need to play a lot more online!
wow, really rough. im speechless as to the actual outcome of the hand and villians holding, but pretending i hadnt read the spoiler and didnt suspect the villian to be a money-hating fool (there must be a factory near tunica spitting these out), this is what i would be thinking:
looks like a kind of scary flop to me to be firing out into 2 opponents with A-Ko (a hand i have a terrible time playing OOP, especially after raising PF).
given your table image what range do you think your opponents put you on PF? if they think youre a nit, they probably arent putting you on a bluff trying to scoop up the dead money, so that probably narrows your range to roughly medium-large pocket pairs or a big ace. what is your actual range of hands youd make this play with? are you merging your ranges? what would you raise a medium-big pocket pair here to, etc?
so you get two callers. what range do you put them on? hard to put MP on a specific range without a read, but he limped then called $15, that gives us something. more importantly, LP overcalls making him look even weaker.
i think live LAGS make (or like to think they make) a lot of money by relentlessly floating nits and tourists, and are willing to call huge PF bets on account of their implied equity. they dont have great implied odds on a speculative hand if you arent deep stacked or wont stack off light, but if they peg you as someone who plays fit and fold, or will one and done the flop after missing, theyll abuse their position and give up a lot of initial card advantage, and even pot equity on the flop, for a substantial makeup in fold equity in a raised pot later in the hand.
so i think given your perceived range, its unlikely to your opponents that you hit the flop unless youre doing so with an over pair or a set. if they put you on an overpair or a set, this probably looks like a great board to float you with. plus i think the fact that he limped and then called a raise behind another caller implies his range is leaning more towards the speculative side or pocket pairs. i would think 4-5s, 6-7s, 7-8s, and tons of other suited cards, like suited broadway, are definitely in his range here.
the fact that theres a straight and a flush draw on the board makes it even more likely for your opponent to float you as they might be inclined to treat the other draw as bluff outs and rep whichever draw they didnt make if they dont make theres (especially since you have a narrow range and are showing strength on the flop where any strong made hand (without a redraw) will be beat by any draw that comes through).
so i think its important to look at the reasons for betting the flop here. at this point, were obv betting primarily as a bluff to take the pot down, but will this be effective against his range of hands? what will he lay down for a 2/3 pot continuation bet here considering the range villian puts you on? will he fold 77 or 88? overpair like TT or JJ? surely not a set. what would you have done if opponent had raised the flop? i think the fact that villian calls the cbet on a wet drawy board with more cards to come when youre already very near the brink of committment makes it less likely villian is on a set, 2 pair, or top pair with no draw.
the turn is a weird card i think as it gives you a flush and straight draw, but at the same time, couldve easily helped your opponent as well. your straight could be no good even if you hit and theres even an outside chance youre drawing to the worst flush (though at this point enough of your chips are in the pot to make this moot). still, your turn cbet bluff has now turned into a semibluff of sorts, though i dont think semibluffing is too great with only one card to come, and your bet relative to the pot and effective stack sizes doesnt carry much fold equity. so considering were out of position unimproved on the turn of a wet board that looks very nice to a floaty villian with a wide, speculative range, i think id probably just give up here and hope for him to check it back and make the flush on the river, maybe check the river to and let him bluff rep the flush draw.
i guess all in all, i probably wouldntve cbet the flop. i think its hard to tell where you are in the hand and have 2 opponents behind. i know im bad w AK OOP so i try to look ahead and not get into tricky spots with it even if it means im not playing it optimally yet. i guess in general i just try to be really careful double barrelling out of position and on drawy boards.
but yeah, if variance is the devil, multitabling online is the glittering sword of truth.
[...] mood to make plays that pay you off when you happen to make good hands? Are they in the mood to look into your soul and decide you must have AK-high on the day you happen to be bluffing with AK-high, or on the day you’re betting pocket aces [...]