Almost Did My Stones

Friday, June 8, 2007

I had a close call last night with some heavy initial loses. I brought $450 to the table at NL$1000 and settled into the game quite quickly. There was one fish, one question mark and the rest were regulars with one player appearing particularly solid.

I made a horror bluff in a battle of the blinds where I completely out-thought myself by moving to 3rd level thinking without even bothering with 2nd level thinking. Embarrassing frankly! Basically I have AhJh in the SB and raise $35 into the solid BB (THINKmcFly) - he calls and the flop is 3,5,6 (suits irrelevant). I sense a c-bet is never getting respect here so I opt for a different strategy and check. Villain bets 2/3rd pot and I call - the turn is dealt a 7 and I check again. He bets strong and I check-raise him all in which he calls quick smart. My thinking is that my hand represents the straight or two pair (or the occasional wild air bluff). I'd never play an over-pair to this board in this manner and he knows I'd not play AK-AJ, KQ like this either (or I shouldn't!). To check call I usually have a draw, small part of the board or good over cards. The good over cards get ditched when he bets the turn and the draw or small part is likely there now. If I had 45s, 34s, 46s, 57s, etc then I've got a strong hand here and he'll have to fold a wide range of hands.

The problem though is that whilst I did a reasonable job of representing those hands above I didn't stop to think what HE might actually have. He'd re-raise me with AK, AQ hands preflop and probably all PP's. To bet that flop therefore he either has something of it or total air. Since I know he raises most pairs it's likely he has a pair or two pair and if he has a pair it'll most likely be connected since he'd not defend A6s or K3s, etc. When he bets the turn again the chances of him having air are reduced significantly and it's pretty clear that he's got the straight I'm trying to represent or two pair which he can't really fold to a c/r. He called with 67 and I was instantly gutted with how poorly constructed this bluff was. If we were 300bb then, yeah, maybe I could have got him to fold, but when I'm about 50bb I have no hope. It's embarrassing to post this but I've got to put up the good and that bad I guess!

I bought in for another $400 and played away at the same table - this was a substantial ‘bend' of my bankroll rules but I felt confident that the previous hand had knocked my game into check. I made a lot of nice small pots and moved table to tackle another fish. I took $860 to that new table, being the current value of my $400 second investment. Nothing happened for several orbits, the fish left and THINKmcFly was still to my left on the new table. I unchecked auto-post and played to UTG whilst buying into another table for $400. My thinking here was that if I lose that $800 stack I'm a full $800 down for the night. However, if I buy in for $400 to another table then I'm effectively back where I started for the night (i.e even with a $400 investment on a NL$1000 table). Just then I get QQ UTG on the $800 table. I raise and THINKmcFly re-raises me strong - he knows I'm not messing around from UTG so I expect his hand is a genuine one. I also don't believe, and this is a matter of some debate on 2+2, that he calls if I 4-bet large or push with any hand that I beat. He's played me enough tonight to know a 4-bet from me here is QQ-AA so I'd expect him to definitely fold JJ down and probably AK too. I elect to call and the flop comes 8 high with two clubs. In hindsight I feel the play here is for me to lead out but I checked and he bet $175 which I knocked up to $500. I raised as I was afraid he'd use position to take free cards with a club draw or AK - he pushed and I knew I was toast but had to call $200 into $1700-odd. He had KK and stacked me!! I posted the hand on 2+2 and everyone says it's a cooler but I think I played it badly and I think I could have folded if I'd bet out and was raised by this particular player.

So now I'm $900 down and in a state of shock!! I'm about to come out of my other table and quit for the night but I get AA and take a pot preflop when I 3-bet a CO raise. Next hand I get KK and take another little pot and the hand after that I get AK and take another pot on the flop. Suddenly my $400 is at $650 from nowhere and I fold a few hands and think it through. I'm gutted I didn't get those 3-hands on the table I got stacked on because it would look like mega-tilt and one of them would probably get paid! I make a controversial decision to stay and play this stack as a double up gets me around even for the night and losing it is neither here nor there as I'm beyond my threshold of pain. I play really well and run a few nice little bluffs and subtle plays to creep my stack up to around $1100 or so. When I booked out for my session I was down $229 and I see that as an excellent achievement considering how close I was to being completely screwed!

I've had a few teething issues at NL$1000 that I didn't really have at NL$600 but I feel I'm getting much better by the day. I've knocked out 500 hands of NL$1000 and I'm $91 down. That's not bad considering I ran QQ into KK for a $1700 pot, lost $450 on a horror bluff and the night before lost $400 odd with A9 vs Q10 hand. I've not even had any big pots in my favour so all of the recovery has been little/medium pots and I think two flips for $500-600 pots that I've won. I'm up for NL$400 and $600 and between all those levels I'm running at around 4ptbb/100 over a truly pointless sample.

I'm going away for the weekend so I'll consolidate a little and when I return I'll probably hop onto NL$600 tables initially with $250.

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