Players in attendance: Hitmanhead, TheConge, Pokerhontasz, KingTubby, Top_Jimmy
We changed the format of this week’s game to a cash game for a change of pace, which was originally KingTubby’s idea and I pushed it because the sit and go format can be boring if you play them all the time. Everyone seemed to think a cash game was a good idea for a one off so we set the blinds at a wallet friendly 5p/10p and all sat down with £10 = 100bb. My girlfriend does not play cash poker online and initially baulked at the idea of me sitting down with a ‘massive stack,’ since in a way it forces everyone to buy in for the maximum. As a fan of Doyle Brunson she will eventually come to understand the logic of sitting down with the table maximum in any cash game. Your stack is your leverage to make decent sized bets and raises, and a shorter stack restricts your game to simply waiting for a made hand and then quickly getting it all in. As a micro and nano stakes donkey I am not strictly bankrolled to play stakes as high as 5p/10p cash. If I were to lose 3 or 4 buy ins in a row that would sting badly at these stakes and this can happen faster than you can say ‘Damn my aces just got cracked, again.’ That said I sat down with my stop-loss limit at 3 buy ins and got started on the cooking lager. In respect of the increased money on the table this week, I could have chosen not to drink alcohol, but I would rather loosen things up a bit than sit quietly and soberly playing one pot every 5 mins. I also chose to not take notes on key pots and avoid my traditional write up, since I think everyone is getting fed up of me commentating and judging their plays. Since I started this blog to help think about and improve my own game, instead I will judge a couple of my own plays…
I played a small ball game for the most part and got quite lucky, being dealt a few aces and broadway hands on the button which were mostly raise and take it down preflop hands. Five handed play requires you to adjust your opening ranges so I was a little bit more liberal with my openers, without going into permanent raise mode. I played a tight, uncreative but successful game and I don’t think I even three bet once during the whole game. I faced one tough spot fairly early on with a flush draw/straight draw/overcard to the board combination that I played aggressively, but got reraised on the flop after donking out. I will often play these monster-combination draws aggressively as you have a lot of equity on the flop (I figured I had 15 outs twice if it played down to the end), but I have run into trouble playing this way online since nobody can ever fold a hand. If you are going to semibluff a draw by betting hard, then part of your hand’s strength is your fold equity. Gus Hansen talks about these types of hands for tournament play in ‘Every Hand Revealed’ and tries to plan a series of bets that still has a chance of folding out one or two better hands in an opponent’s range, whilst getting the most chips in when you have lots of equity. He achieves this by check raising an aggressive player or betting with the intention of four bet shoving a player who will likely get married to his one pair type hands. You have to know that your opponent is definitely going to bet with a large portion of his/her missed hands in order for a check raise to work. In this case I should have realised that was my best way to maximize fold equity, but since I accidentally donk bet and got raised I had to reevaluate the situation. As Gus might say ‘Fold-nope; Call-has some merit, allows me to keep the pot small and see if I can hit one of my many outs; Four bet-maximum rock and roll and definitely the most stylish move'. I reasoned that there were more weak draws and weak made hands than missed overcards hand in my opponent’s range so if I four bet, I allow him to play perfectly by folding draws and weak pairs, and five betting strong hands. Another way of saying this is that in the event he was sitting on two pair or a set, keeping the pot small was probably a good idea. I was getting 2:1 pot odds to call the flop with a 50% chance (by the river) of making my hand so I decided to call and try and take it away on any blank turn card, or put the pedal to the metal if I hit one of my outs. The next card was a handy brick and I bet out again to take the hand down. The next time I flop the world I will be check raising a la Gus’ tournament strategy, and hopefully I can avoid such a sticky spot against a good aggressive opponent!
The game had some interesting swings in dynamic and I found myself sitting on a modest profit for a while and nitting up during a spell of super loose play. Another interesting hand came up three way when I reraised two pair to a flop donk lead, hoping to take it down on a low connected board out the big blind. I was called behind by one player in position and the initial donker folded the sb. The turn card was an ace which reasonably improved some of my opponent’s range and clearly did not affect mine, so I blocker bet folded the turn which was probably a silly move. My donk rationale was that my opponent will call a bet with dominated one pair and other made hands better or worse, but will always bet out a larger bet size with 100% of his range so even though it was a small chance, I thought I could get a cheaper river card by betting than check calling. Cue QI style Klaxon noise!!! This is the effect of cooking lager ladies and gentlemen, the breakdown of sound rationale and a journey into the quagmire of foggy logic. In retrospect I should have folded what was the worst made hand possible on the worst flop since King Kong felt pressured on his wedding night. I was mildly tilted with myself after this hand but quickly recovered as I was still showing a healthy profit and the night was drawing to a close. Within a few hands the second of our five players was felted and the game broke up. I feel compelled to express the results in some form so with no rebuys the finishing positions were…
Pokerhontasz-doubled through+
Top_Jimmy-roughly a stack and a half
Hitmanhead-roughly a stack and a third-half
TheConge-felted
KingTubby-felted
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