$5/$10 NLHE action on FTP. I've been playing these higher stakes without much progress for the past 10 days, +/- 1,000. Up until last thursday, all was fine. Then I had another setback. So, I reviewed my hand logs. Can see the opportunities to make consistent progress, but I am missing the bit of luck (or absence of bad luck) to take a leap ahead. Each session has been ~250-500 hands with the following patterns:
(1) Feeling out table/players for pre-flop strategies. Have needed to adjust quite dramatically to various conditions. Have tried everything from only limping pre-flop to always re-raising ($120 pre flop) in order to enter a hand. Style depends on the level of maniacs on the table (which seem to be more prevelent lately).
(2) Post-flop has been a mix between playing very tight (disciplined folding) and call-stealing only selectively. Identified two problems (Problem #1) correctly putting players on hands based on betting patterns and then failing to get them to laydown hands when the board says they should. MUST READ CALLING STATIONS BETTER. I have bluffed some big money away when I get a chip-lead on the table and see an opportunity to call-steal. For example, call a $120 re-raise pre-flop with QcJc to see a board of 9s8s7c. Call $180 continuation bet. Turn is the flush card. Tight player checks the turn with AA and won't lay it down to a $400 bet with straight and flush on the board (which I too missed). (Problem #2) very aggressive players that always raise pre and then continuation bet. What I have been doing is probing them to see if they will lay anything down to re-raises post-flop. If not, I tighten up, slow play big hands and try to hit some suited connectors. But, am finding even after several hundred hands of setting them up (folding consistently - giving them license to bluff-off their stack), I fall to the almighty Poker Gods ruthless suck-outs.
With all this said, I have suffered some really painful bad-beats that have kept me from moving significantly ahead in the P&L.
Situation 1: Worked $1000 starting stack up to $2500 using the strategies above. Find QsQc in BB and re-raise to $120 after the very aggressive maniac cut-off raises to $35. Maniac min-raises to $240 (with $1500 behind). I call, worried he might have AA/KK. Flop comes Qh2s3s. I bet out $500 into the $500 pot. He pops me to $1500, all-in. I call to see As4s for the 11-outter draw (spades and 5's). He hits the 5 on the turn and the 9h missed my opportunity to boat-up. Loose a massive $3500 pot getting out-drawn.
Situation 2: Another maniac aggressive player on the BB has been continually re-raising my button raises. Maniac takes a hit to his stack in the previous hand and has $800 left. I find AK on the button and again raise, knowing he will probably re-raise me based on history and he is on TILT from previous hand. Sure enough, my $35 raise gets popped to $120. Now, with only $650 behind, I'm pretty sure he is continuation betting the flop, so I decide to put him all-in pre-flop. Against a tighter player, I'm not making this move, but odds that he has AA/KK are low based on his pre-flop aggression. He calls, flipping over AJ. Now I'm a 3:1 favorite with $1650 in the pot. He spikes a J on the flop and another on the turn to suck-out.
Situation 3: Same player, about 12 hands later. Same situation. From the button I find KK. Raise to $35 gets re-raised to $120. I 3x-raise to $540. He flat calls. Flop 9h3c6d. I've never seen a better flop for KK. He leads-out $650 (with $750 behind) into the $1100 pot. I push all-in for $1300, covering him. He calls for a total pot of $3800. Maniac flips over TT. I'm 9:1 favorite here. Turn and river are running 7,8 for the straight. Loose another $3800 pot.
Not really sure how to take these recent events, except to acknowledge that $5/$10 is a much bigger game than I should be playing with my bankroll. Haven't been that worried, since the opportunities to jump up to $10k bankroll have been right in front of me. From this level, I'm more confident I can ride out the ups and downs of "luck", which seems to be far too big of a driver lately to give me confidence in sticking to these higher limits. I am contemplating either boosting my bankroll to $10k or stepping back down to $1/2 or $2/4.
Bankroll: $2,017
1 comment:
After a pretty bad run of cards over at VC, I've now been playing no limit texas holdem poker over at Littlewoods instead. I have since had a really good run and the standard of play seems much higher - even though I've managed to make 3 MTT final tables in a row now :-D That said, I did get lucky the 3rd tournament - but hey ho.
But yea, generally speaking the cards at LW are coming down as you'd hope (or expect, rather) that they would so it makes it a good place to play poker.
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