Inspired by Jager's operation thread, I've written below what I think my best and worst poker areas are.

Strengths:

Playing very good players
Playing very bad players
Recognising who the good and bad players are
3-betting with position pre-flop
Positional play in general
Flop aggression
Good mathematical instincts
Sensitive play with marginal hands

Weaknesses:

Give up hands too easily against laggs
Sometimes re-raise bluffs/semi-bluffs against aggressive players who are too likely to play back at me
Find it really hard to size bets ideally for optimal extraction
Close out too many good hands too quickly through over-aggression
Bet/raise too many rivers
Take draws too far against aware players
React too negatively to bad results

You know what's most dispiriting about $100NL? It's not, in itslef, the fact that suddenly I can lose more than ever before; it's not the laggs frustrating me time after time; it's not the relative lack of easy money.

It's the fact that, for the first time, I honestly don't expect to win a session. Obviously I know that if I play good poker, I will hopefully end up ahead 20k hands down the line. But whereas in every previous limit (inlcuding the financially-identical £50nl), I have known I could earn decent $$$ in the long term, it's just not the case any more.

Let's have a look at my PT session stats - what proportion of tables ended up in profit:

$25NL: 49.1% - lol I haven't been a regular at $25 since moving to this PC, so we can ignore this stat. I hope...
£25NL: 61.0% - aaaah, I remember those days. 35k hands at 9.3ptbb/100.
$50NL: 51.8% - never really found a good home at $50. Subconsciously I don't think I've taken it as seriously as the pound tables.
£50NL: 54.1% - very pleasing, especially at 6.67ptbb/100. Shame about the rake.
$100NL: 47.0% - and $458 down overall. I guess I just haven't got it yet.

Yesterday morning I decided to play a few hands of blind $5NL 6max. I managed 53 hands without seeing my cards once, and only on two of these hands did I lose a substantial amount (once when check raised on a turn while - inevitably - I was being the aggressor, and once - the final hand, by which time I had decided to double up my $4 or lose it all - when I pushed over a raggy flop into a set), The rest of the time I played lovely, aggressive poker - my stats were 34/34/5 and I picked up a lot of blinds and lot of flops.

As an exercise, it was very useful, though because you're never seeing a showdown, it's hard to see how you're going to be able to make a great deal even if you pwn 90% of the hands you play. What was interesting is that I checked my cards afterwards and I had been running cold as fuck - one AK, one KJ, one 44 and that was it! I'd advise anyone try it - raising and re-raising pre-flop, betting flops, calling cbets then betting turns, etc. You probably won't win but it need only cost you a few bucks and it's great for discipline.

Comments and questions here please: http://www.flopturnriver.com/phpBB2/forum/poker-44273.htm

Since I have now started an operation thread - http://www.flopturnriver.com/phpBB2/forum/poker-52833.htm - in which I make daily updates in an attempt to be more accountable as I hopefully move permanently to $100NL, I'll probably be writing less in this here blog. So please visit my operation and leave your thoughts there!

March not so good:

What a crappy March. About $80 down for the month so far, playing badly, the player base has without doubt got stronger, and I am getting pwned. It's no fun right now.

Or, technically, SNGs - my first stab at a Stars 180-person $11 and I manage 4th. I was chip leader with 5 left so it's a bit of a shame, but I played pretty well, had my share of luck, and deserved a decent cash. And $144 is my best non-Freeroll MTT prize, so forgive me for my moment of rather pathetic triumph

Last night I was lucky enough to get AA twice and KK twice in the space of 15 minutes.

All four times I lost between half a buyin and a buyin.

Let's say you have J2s on the button at £50NL 6max. It's folded to you and you raise to £2. Fair enough. Then the SB re-raises to £5. Are there any occasions (assuming you don't have a read on villain that he's a total donk who you can beat post-flop with any 2 cards 100% of the time) where calling or 4-betting is a good move?

He thought so. Especially when the flop came J92. Though he was decent enough to let me bet off my whole stack by the river (another 2, just to give me two pair and to rub it in).

My one plus of the night was beating a certain $200NL+ FTR regular who was slumming it for an evening. I get 88 in the SB, villain is on the button and, with 28/28 stats at this point, a raise is hardly a surprise. So I repop it to £5; he ups it to £13; naturally, I 5-bet to £25. "JJ no good", he types, before reluctantly folding. Result.

First of all, let me say that I lost another £61 to my nemesis from the post below. I overplayed TPGK, believing I had a read, and he flipped over a set of aces after I'd pushed over his massive turn bet. Man, I need to calm down and analyse this a bit better - I may have watched him play a session where he hit (and bet) EVERYTHING, but his stats are 31/11/1.8 so he's hardly a maniactard.

-£61 was in fact my end result, and although it sucks (it always sucks that much harder when a losing session follows a losing session), I played better poker than I have done in I don't know how long. The reason is straightforward; I wasn't feeling up to grinding away at £50, so I loaded a single $10NL 6max table with the aim of being as laggy as I possibly could - it's an area of my game that is completely missing and I wanted to practise in gentle surroundings.

So I get going, and all goes well - no enormous pots, backwards and forwards, I am a little bit up after 50 hands and, to my delight, find I'm playing 58/40. The something Primal kicks in, and my looseness imperceptibly falls - when I quit after 140 hands I've recorded 38/29/5. Which in itself is fine, but is it really the best I can do?

A positive side effect, however, is to make me play more aggressively in the two £50 games I also have running. Apart from the above disaster, and a big bluff gone wrong, I do pretty well, and manage to record 27/20 stats, well up from my 24/14 long-term figures. And I am winning lots of hands, and LOTS of blinds, while playing good poker.

So perhaps this could give me a new operation which I can detail on FTR - maybe set myself a target of 30/20 over the next 10k hands? I'll give it some though.

Comments, as ever, here please: http://www.flopturnriver.com/phpBB2/forum/poker-44273.htm

Just a quick whiny post - if you hate moaning, look away now.

Last night was possibly my worst night ever (well, with Bonus and rb it probably wasn't) in terms of cash lost. I was 4-tabling £50NL 6max and playing pretty well, but things weren't going my way:

- I managed to lose a stack with KK, bet-sizing beautifully on a Q-high board so I was all in with a 3/4 psb on the river, only to have the guy to my left, who had been happily letting me bet, snaffle it from me with AA. He had min-re-raised with position pre-flop, so I guess I could have slowed down. But I didn't, so meh.

- I'm usually more pragmatic about split pots, but this one sucked so badly, and came so soon after the above stacking, that I got very upset. I check in the BB with 78o; flop is 45T. I am checked to, so decide to c-bet, and am called by the SB. Ah well, no biggie. The turn, however, is a 6, and after multiple raises, to my delight, we're both all in - a lovely sexy 250bb pot and me with the nuts as he turns over 73.

The river, of course, is an 8. Three-outed for a loss of $120.

A couple of other poor hands and I was down just over 3 buyins. I then start getting it together - some decent cards and a determined attempt to wrest control of the tables won me two of them back. It was getting late, and when my best table was down to HU, I thought I'd hit the sack. But then I realise that the guy next to me was a lagg who'd shown down a few dodgy hands and I wondered if my superior skillz might help me get back to even.

The answer = an emphatic no. This guy was the most aggressive HU player I've ever come across, so I was obliged to call raises and make raises of my won I wouldn't usually do. I was doing okay, but he was hitting every single time - the two occasions when I rightly called him down with 3rd or 4th pair, he'd hit on the river.

So I am down almost a buyin in about 5 minutes, when I notice we're HU in a hand on another table. I have 33, so I'm delighted to see a 3TJ flop, and even happier when he bets into me. Soon we're all in - a 360bb pot this time - and this guy, this laggy fucker who'll raise with air 9 times out of ten, turns over TT.

In ten minutes I manage to lose $330 to this guy alone. I feel physically sick; I can't move; I feel like I've been assaulted. Anosmic is fortunately on AIM to console me - and lord knows he's had his share of appalling fortune lately - but I can't breath or speak. In all my poker days I've never had such a visceral response to losing.

It's past my bedtime, but I know I'm too upset to sleep, so I chat and think and surf meaninglessly for half an hour. When I go to bed it's all I can think about. This morning, it's all I can think about. The rational part of my brain knows it's just what happens, and I know I'll be fine in a day or two (note to self: maybe do some chores tonight, or watch a film, rather than playing). But man. This is a brutal game sometimes.

Actually, no - the turn would have been different - but still:

Seat 1: Enslah ($54.85 in chips)
Seat 2: SRSLY ($51.87 in chips)
Seat 3: Beziio ($43 in chips)
Seat 4: megleren ($51.20 in chips)
Seat 5: pokerphia ($48.75 in chips)
Seat 6: hother ($60.23 in chips)
megleren: posts small blind $0.25
pokerphia: posts big blind $0.50
----- HOLE CARDS -----
dealt to SRSLY [7c 8c]
hother: folds
Enslah: folds
SRSLY: raises to $1.50
Beziio: calls $1.50
megleren: folds
pokerphia: raises to $5.50
SRSLY: calls $4 (I took this to the final second before calling)
Beziio: calls $4
----- FLOP ----- [Th 9c 6d]
pokerphia: bets $12
SRSLY: calls $12
Beziio: folds
----- TURN ----- [Th 9c 6d][Ts]
pokerphia: bets $24
SRSLY: raises to $34.37 and is all-in
pokerphia: is all-in $7.25
Returned uncalled bets $3.12 to SRSLY
----- RIVER ----- [Th 9c 6d Ts][Ah]
----- SHOW DOWN -----
SRSLY: shows [7c 8c] (A Straight, Ten high)
pokerphia: shows [Kc Ks] (Two Pairs, Kings and Tens, Ace high)
SRSLY collected $100.25 from Main pot

So, I don't tilt much these days, and when I do, I can usually recognise it quickly and minimise the damage.

Not so last night.

The evening started badly - me and the gf were in bickery mood and I was a bit annoyed. I'd been looking forward to playing poker, and hopefully regaining the £50 or so I was down for the weekend with a good 2-3 hours session at the £50NL 6max tables at Crypto. Unfortunately, there were major disconnection issues on PokerPlex, and although I don't think I lost more than a few blinds as a result, it just got me more annoyed. The the following hand happened:

I raise in MP with KQo and the BB calls. Flop is xJT rainbow. He donk bets maybe 2/3 the pot, I call. Turn is a rag, he bets out again (and again I am not getting pot odds, but I have overs and the nut OESD) so I call again. River is a King; he then pushes, 80+bbs, AND I CALL. Wtf. He shows down JT and I lose all but a couple of quid. With TPGK.

Anyway, Crypto is showing no sign of stabilising, so I decide to quit and play some 6max $25NL at Stars to let my aggression out on some weak passive fishies. And it all goes great for a while - I quickly find myself up almost 3 buyins, playing a more fun aggro game (about 29/21 rather than 24/14) and enjoying myself. But then...

There is another big stack on the table where I am sitting pretty on $75. He's okay - 40/10, plays competently post-flop, but not exactly a shark. I get the chance to take a good pot off him - and his second pair make 2 pair on the river and knocks $20 off my stack (I had TPTK and was, correctly, absolutely certain I was ahead until then). From then on, I am riled, and despite getting good cards pre- and post-flop, I donk off hand after hand to this guy who, every time, has the hand one step up the ladder to what I'm holding. This isn't too bad; but I am calling re-raises and playing over-aggro because I still haven't calmed down.

Eventually, I see my last $31 disappear to this guy when my two pair loses to his rivered straight - of course, most of my money goes in when I'm dead, and I gg him and leave the table. I should have reloaded, and on a normal day I'd have confidently expected to take a lot of his new-found winnings back, but not this time. Combined with mistakes and bad beats on my other tables, I had gone from 3 buyins up to, ultimately, 1 buyin down - and this is at a game I'm genuinely way better than.

I've had worse days, and I've played worse, but the unique combination of annoyance, aggression, bad beats and calling like a teenage girl has left me still huffing and puffing about the sheer aggravation as I sit at my desk at work 13 hours later.

Comments here please: http://www.flopturnriver.com/phpBB2/forum/poker-44273.htm

Nothing but an update, just to keep my hand in. My upswing finally ended on Friday night - nearly 1,000 hands (which is a lot for me) and -£42 by the end of it. Which was a triumph of sorts as I was £160 down at one point.

So, here's my last 10k hands, for interest.



I'm still playing £50 as my Primary game, despite a couple of stabs at $100 going pretty well. Too well, in fact (30PTBB/100 or so), so I know they're not representative. I just can't get excited about moving up to a level that's significantly tougher and barely any more financially rewarding. And so far my stabs at £100NL have NOT been worth writing home about (also, that's practically $200NL! Do you think I'm made of, uh, leet poker skeelz

However, my game is still developing. Current areas of interest: how to control pot sizes better; reducing my post-flop aggression factor (was over 4 for a bit, and millions of worse hands were folding quicker than they should have); taking stack sizes more in to account when figuring out what bets to make. So the idea is to tweak my game to make it less of a blunt object and to earn more value on my made hands.

I am also taking more notes. On a relatively small site like Crypto (though I did notice more active players than I think I've ever seen on Friday night, something like 5,800), there are quite a few regulars at £50NL and, unsurprisingly, they tend to be pretty decent. So my notes are going beyond "likes to re-raise dry flops", though I could still improve. I should really have the discipline to make notes every time I see someone show down, but even only 3/4 tabling it can be really annoying.

And now, a message from our sponsors: any laptop poker player who doesn't have a wireless mouse - get one, dude! It makes everything SO much easier.

*as ever, please comment - especially on the game development stuff - on my blog thread: http://www.flopturnriver.com/phpBB2/forum/poker-44273.htm

How many buyins do you have to lose before it become a proper downswing? 4? 10? 20? Whichever it is, I was beginning to worry after a pretty vertical 5-buyin loss.

Thankfully, yesterday I won 5 buyins. Here's the graph for the last 3 days:

Things haven't been going well lately. I haven't lost thousands; I haven't even played that many hands. Thing is, when I do play, I'm playing scared. I am so sick of being re-raised and having to fold (and I DO fold, all the time, far more often than I should) that I'm not cbetting nearly as much any more - I just assume that all my bluffs will be re-raised, and when you've got that kind of mentality, of course, it seems like they always are.

So I am basically playing in two gears: over-aggro when I do bet, and piss-weak when someone bets back at me or when someone leads. It's like the two aspects of my game, offence and defence, have both become caricatures of themselves, retreating to both ends of the spectrum respectively, leaving me without the ability to actually play poker against aggressive or competent opponents.

In this mire, I have made a few good moves - two big, ballsy, aggressive bluffs last night where I stated with no uncertain terms I was playing for stack, and got good players to fold on dangerous boards. But my bread and butter game is in a horrible state - I am calling more then folding to any strength, after having bet my TPWK on a meh flop and being raised by a lagg with position. It's got to stop and I'm not sure how.

It just occurred to me earlier tonight. I am approaching $10,000 profit in my poker career and I haven't even given it a second thought until now. Problem is, I can't for the life of me begin to work out exactly how much I am up - the complications of 9 site memberships, several Rakeback deals, various completed and non-completed Bonuses means I don't think I could convincingly get within say $200 of the correct total.

However, this weekend I'm going to give it a go - work out a rough figure, round it down, then use it as a base for the first realistic target I've set myself in god knows how long. My guess is that I'm a touch above $8,000 right now, after an unsuccessful move to $100NL and a few difficult, but still marginally profitable few months.

So, we'll see. I'll be able to have a Poker Etcetera operation thread after all!

So - I *think* I was roughly 0EV in this hand, but I actually timed out trying to figure it out. What would *you* have done?

Party Poker
No Limit Holdem Ring game
Blinds: $0.25/$0.50
5 players
Converter

Pre-flop: (5 players Hero is SB with :4d :ad
2 folds, Button calls, Hero calls, BB raises to $1.5, Button calls, Hero calls.

Flop: :2s :9d :3d ($4.5, 3 players
Hero checks, BB bets $4, Button raises all-in $14.44, Hero folds, BB folds.
Uncalled bets: $10.44 returned to Button.

Results:
Final pot: $12.5

So, I have a question. I see quite a lot of players - by and large not noobs and not at the lower limits, and Primarily $100NL upwards - talking about how they routinely make - or lose - 5+ buyins in a session.

Now, I play $50/£50NL 6max and I am not a lag, and I seldom go for tiny edges - my stats are roughly 24/14/3.5, playing a TAggy game with taking advantage of position/weakness uppermost in my strategic mindset. I make quite a few moves - when I enter a pot it's with the intention of taking it down any way I can - but I know I am too weak-tight when it comes to responding to the moves of others.

When I have a hand I almost never slowplay and tend to avoid building big pots with TPTK-type hands. By and large I will either fold to strength or will raise people when I think they have a marginal hand or are bluffing, and I will usually fold if re-raised - my mentality is very much safety first when I am not the aggressor.

My question, then, is this - is the above info enough to prove why I am very seldom all-in* and very seldom tripling or quadrupling my stack? I am a winning player but don't often manage to more than double up - a typical 90-min session will see say +1 buyin, +0.6 buyin, +0.2. buyin, -0.6 buyin on my 4 tables. I make about 6PTBB/100, I reckon, so it's not like I've got big leaks, but I feel I must be missing something from my game if I'm almost never having these big short-term upswings. Or do they only come with lagging it up? Or tagging for 5 hours plus?

(*I take down a LOT of very short stacks but I very seldom have 100BB+ committed)

Any answers, or thoughts on the topic, very much appreciated - please comment here: http://www.flopturnriver.com/phpBB2/forum/poker-44273.htm

My stats from my £50/$50NL 6max session tonight. Weird huh?

Played a shortish session this morning, lost maybe half a buyin. I really don't have anything to say about it at all, other than meh. Meh.

So this afternoon I loaded up 3 MTTs. I hardly ever play MTTs, I'm not very good at them, but I made the money once - 23rd out of 276 in a Party $11 tourney. Go me! I might have lasted longer but I made a move against a big stack and lost 2/3 of my stack. Idiot Mark.

Ah well. Poker is still not making me very happy. Let's see what happens over the weekend.

At home with a stomach bug, so I'll have a go at some poker (which I haven't done all week for a variety of reasons, not least that I'm still not over my downswing and I'm scared). I'll keep updating the blog as I go. I'm seriously lacking in confidence right now because I just can't seem to deal with people re-raising my bets when I haven't got a monster - as you can imagine this is a bit of a problem above 6max $50NL. So, let's see how I cope with it - hand histories, and commentary, to follow.

Down 10 buyins this week, and I've only played 1000 hands. That sucks a bit.

Favourite hand from today - not a bad beat, just typical of current fortune. Enjoy.


No Limit Hold'em CryptoLogic-Network.php>CryptoLogic (£50NL)
Converted by FTRConv
6-handed

StacksSB: £15.90
BB: £47.90
UTG: £8.03
UTG+1: £69.55
Hero: £57.40
BTN: £54.90


Pre-Flop: Hero is CO with 8 9
UTG calls, UTG+1 raises to £2, Hero calls, BTN folds, SB folds, BB folds, UTG folds

Flop:(£5.25) 8 9 K (2 players)
UTG+1 checks, Hero bets £3.50, UTG+1 calls

Turn:(£12.25) 8 (2 players)
UTG+1 checks, Hero bets £5, UTG+1 calls

River:(£22.25) 3 (2 players)
UTG+1 bets £8, Hero raises to £46.90 and is all-in, UTG+1 calls
Final Pot: £116.05

Villain holds KK, of course. She presumably put me on AK or KQ and just let me hang myself, which is what I put her on. Certainly I believed I wanted to get all-in on this river - I wasn't going to lay down to a 3-bet push, was I?

This is a holding blog entry. I just haven’t been able to figure out what to write lately, and it never seems like the time is right, so I guess a quick catchup is probably appropriate.

I have been playing 6max £50NL (and $50 and, very occasionally, $100) for about a month now, although things have slowed down a lot in the past few days, not least because I have started playing Football Manager 2007, but also because I am having a minor loss of enthusiasm for the game. It doesn’t help that I’ve had losing sessions the last three occasions, or that during the last two my heart hasn’t been in it – which is a shame as the other one was probably the best poker I’ve ever played.

I think it’s to do with the money. Now, when I play poker properly (i.e. quadding £50NL 6max) my expected return is roughly equivalent to my hourly wage at work. Suddenly, this doesn’t feel like a hobby any more; it feels like a job, because it brings in real money. I am experiencing the paradox of feeling like I should get *more* hours in to maximise my return while actually have far less enthusiasm.

As some of you will have realised, throughout my poker career I have strongly maintained that it is a fun hobby which, advantageously but not essentially, also provides a small amount of extra pocket money. Suddenly, as I look at Poker Tracker and see that I have made the best part of $3,500 since the start of September, it’s impossible for me to reconcile myself with the “Playing for fun” concept. I appreciate this is entirely mental – I should still be able to treat it as a hobby and enjoy even more the substantially greater financial rewards. But I’m struggling.

Funnily enough, the actual cash value of the chips I am winning or losing no longer means a huge amount (well, I say that – when I am $200 down for the day it DOES affect me but I can shrug off any two-figure loss without blinking) – my problem is vaguer and, somehow, more fundamental than that. Anyone got any comments or solutions to my malaise? Please post it at http://www.flopturnriver.com/phpBB2/forum/poker-44273.htm

(this is a post I made on the MTT forum, which is odd as I've played maybe 25 MTTs in my life. But it's about poker in general, and a very important aspect of it which few of us can ignore)


I can't imagine anyone here would choose to put poker ahead of their relationship unless, perhaps, they were a pro and some new love flat out asked them to quit. But it's a genuine problem and it's one that requires compromise from BOTH partners.

Here's my story. As you know, I am a hobbyist player - I work full time and get in maybe 15 hours a week - say 2-3 hours two or three times a weeknight, then the rest spread out over a weekend. This has roughly been the case since I got hooked 18 months ago.

Problems started arising for a number of reasons:

1) I went from not even understanding the game to becoming a poker bore - I would bang on constantly about my new hobby to the gf, to my friends, to people we met at parties.

2) My gf is very short on cash - a debt-laden student with only a part-time job - whereas I own my own place (in which she lives, admittedly) and have an acceptable paying job. Basically, dropping $500 on a hobby wouldn't be a problem for me. So in the early days I would regale her with tales of my poker adventure - "hehe, I lost $37 tonight" - and she would be really resentful that I could lose $$$ gambling - and not care - while she's scrimping for every penny.

3) My computer was in my bedroom, but our telly (in front of which she spent most evenings) was in the sitting room. So, at 10pm every night, I would trot upstairs and play poker for 2 hours, often nto even stopping when she went to bed. Not only did she consider this inconsiderate, but she felt it put a distance between us.

4) She has the incredibly common fundamental, low-level disapproval of gambling. Certainly it's been incredibly difficult for me to explain to her how losing a buyin on a hand where I was 65% favourite isn't a bad thing, or explaining that the comment "I won $100 tonight!" does not need to be followed by "yeah, but how much did you LOSE?"

So, clearly, things had to change. We eventually had A Serious Talk about it, where she expressed her views and I did my best to respond. The constant poker chat was easy enough to cut out; talking about my losses was clearly a no-no (though I also no longer talk about my wins unless asked, as the two are intrinsically intertwined - she does accept that I have consistently MADE money in the long term, though).

As for poker separating us physically, I was able to solve this by buying a laptop (nominally, with my poker winnings, although I didn't actually withdraw anything from my roll) and playing on the sofa next to her. With this came reducing the regularity of my play - no longer playing every night (it's more like one in two these days), though I could also play for longer without the guilt, and playing more tables has actually meant the number of hands I play has gone up quite a lot.

I know she is aware of my playing less (though I still take advantage of the evenings and weekends when she's out - she doesn't have to know how much poker I cram in then and she appreciates it. We can also chat and cuddle pretty much as normal when I am playing next to her - and because I mostly play ring, if I need to stop for any reason all I have to do is sit out, so I don't have to keep her waiting or inconvenience her.

She hasn't moaned about my habit in a long time - which is lucky because to this day I still have a gut worry that she disapproves, and indeed I'm sure she does on some level - she's just learned to tolerate it and accept that I'm not going to give up, but I'm also not going to throw away our money or develop a problem habit. I have also been able to buy her a computer of her own, as well as a ticket to visit her mum in the US - although she has never been one of these partners to say "well if you're winning and I can spend the $$$ then I love poker, honey!", I can see how others might appreciate the fact!

I still wish she liked the game, or was even interested in it because I like it, but I have come to accept that it's just one of those individual hobbies everyone has (and should have) within a relationship. And we seem to have achieved an equilibrium where I can play more or less as much as I want without sacrificing our relationship.

It's taken a lot of work and heartache to get to this point, but I don't think there's any way around it - a couple HAS to express their feelings and then both work to come to an understanding, even if it's ideal for neither. If you're not willing to do that, then you'll have to be prepared to lose one or the other for good.


Please comment in my thread: http://www.flopturnriver.com/phpBB2/forum/poker-44273.htm

One of my biggest leaks is STILL playing poor poker in the first few hands of each session. Each time I say to myself I'll be cautious; each time I do the opposite.

As a perfect example, look at these two hands - my 1st and 2nd hands of the evening, at big scary £50NL.


No Limit Hold'em CryptoLogic-Network.php>CryptoLogic (£50NL)
Converted by FTRConv
6-handed

StacksUTG: £53.50
UTG+1: £50.90
CO: £65.45
BTN: £15.90
SB: £96.40
Hero: £50


Pre-Flop: Hero is BB with A Q
UTG folds, UTG+1 folds, CO folds, BTN folds, SB raises to £2, Hero calls

Flop:(£4.25) 6 7 5 (2 players)
SB bets £3, Hero calls

Turn:(£10.25) Q (2 players)
SB bets £8, Hero raises to £16, SB raises to £30, Hero folds, SB doesn't show hand

Final Pot: £50.25



No Limit Hold'em CryptoLogic-Network.php>CryptoLogic (£50NL)
Converted by FTRConv
6-handed

StacksBB: £53.50
UTG: £50.90
UTG+1: £65.45
CO: £15.90
BTN: £115.30
Hero: £29


Pre-Flop: Hero is SB with 4 4
UTG folds, UTG+1 folds, CO folds, BTN raises to £2, Hero calls, BB folds

Flop:(£4.50) J 6 J (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN checks

Turn:(£4.50) T (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets £3, Hero calls

River:(£10.50) A (2 players)
Hero bets £7, BTN raises to £14, Hero folds, BTN doesn't show hand

Final Pot: £24.50


Your comments gratefully sought on my comments thread at http://www.flopturnriver.com/phpBB2/forum/poker-44273.htm