Self Improvment

I think someone who thinks about their game, what they liked, what they didn't like and discusses it with their friends and thinks about it is someone who will obviously bring a strong mental game to the field. It's pretty annoying for me to see the dumb athletes, people I see with amazing skills and speed, but they like like lost space cadets, clogging the lane, making dumb throwing choices ruining set plays.

So with that in mind, I know Tiger and I used to have a lot of bitch/discussion sessions about how we as individuals and as a team played as we had those long drives back from ELS hall back to the beaches.

However, this post is less about Frisbee and more about me being pissed off at losing 10% of my miniscule online bankroll and getting stacked 3x in 20 minutes. (Stacked means to lose your entire chipstack). No I'm not upset about losing the $5 or whatever it worked out to be, but in the same way you didn't lose money after you lost League, it still can feel pretty shitty to get mopped on the floor by a team you know you should have been beating. I am a winning Online player, which is good since I play poker and don't lose money, but variance still hits me and here's 2 hands that affected me a lot when I played, the second one I got annoyed at and made me play poorly for a few hands. But here is my discussion of these hands.

The hero (me) is a1214.

***** Hand History for Game 7517978927 *****
$5 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Friday, November 07, 07:51:25 ET 2008
Table Table 126376 (Real Money)
Seat 8 is the button
Total number of players : 10

a1214 posts small blind [$0.02 USD].
kentuha777 posts big blind [$0.04 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to a1214 [ 9d 9s ]
Maler81888 calls [$0.04 USD]
yeaah11 raises [$0.24 USD]
DaObnoxious1 folds
Fless555 folds
andry00 folds
DaObnoxious1: :)) looooooooool
a1214 calls [$0.22 USD]
kentuha777 folds
Maler81888 calls [$0.20 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ Ks, 6h, 9c ]
a1214 checks
Maler81888 checks
yeaah11 checks
** Dealing Turn ** [ Qc ]
a1214 bets [$0.36 USD]
Maler81888 calls [$0.36 USD]
yeaah11 raises [$2.17 USD]
a1214 is all-In [$1.36 USD]
Maler81888 folds
** Dealing River ** [ 9h ]
yeaah11 shows [ Th, Jh ]a straight Nine to King.
a1214 shows [ 9d, 9s ]four of a kind, Nines.
yeaah11 wins $0.45 USD from the side pot 1 with a straight, Nine to King.
a1214 wins $4.34 USD from the main pot with four of a kind, Nines.

First thoughts about this hand were making me laugh for that terrible bad beat on the guy on the river who played, but beyond that there is a little more behind the hand. (I have removed the stack sizes from both hands since I was showing to a friend but in all cases I was short stacked around $2 when the rest of other players were $2-$7. The guys I got in tangles with were typically $3.

The first raise from yeah11 I took personally as a blind steal, but I hadn't played many hands from him but I didn't know what sort of range of hands he was playing, so I guessed that he was strong. So if he was strong, why did I call with 9's? Pocket pairs gain their value from hitting well disguised sets in the flop. When calling a preflop raise with pocket pairs (even as low as 2) a lot of the time you will be an underdog HOWEVER the value comes from implied odds. You will hit a set (3 of a kind where you hold a pocket pair as opposed to trips where you have only 1 of the card with the pair on the board) or quads about 11% of the time. Clearly if I am calling 16 cents into a pot of like 34 cents I'm only getting around 2.1:1 on my money which is a bad call, BUT the implied odds of me taking his entire stack are what matters. How do you calculate implied odds? Simply I made a call of 16 cents, with the intention of winning his entire stack if I hit. Simple way to check if the persons stack is 15x the amount you are calling, in the long run you will make money from this play. (You will lose 9/10 times but the 1 you do will you will win 15x your investment which is a netgain of 5x your call)

On the flop, I was out of position so I had to act first. I was pretty sure the 9 giving me a set put me way ahead, and he did raise preflop so I was hoping he would continuation bet on the flop or hit the king and raise. There very few straight possibilities, no straight chances and I was going to bet against he didn't have a set over my set (trip kings against my trip 9s) so I checked. Maybe I should have raised but unless he was an idiot he wouldn't have called a raise with a gutshot straight.

Turn card comes a queen giving him the gutshot straight and best hand. I raise the pot, I'm happy with this raise, one person calls, and my villian raises all in. I snap called. In retrospect I should have thought maybe one little bit longer about what he could have, another set? two pair? straight? But I didn't. So this call turns out was a bad one if I put him on a straight. Why? Well I had to call $1.36 to win a pot of $2.98 which is only 1:2:2 on my money and since I was only about a 20% favourite to win (board could pair = 9 outs + the other 9 = 10 outs = 20% to win aprox) I would have needed to be getting 5:1 on money to make this a good call.

I should have folded that. Either way, I rivered a 9 and beat him down. My bad. Analysis? I was happy until the turn in how I played. However the chances of someone having a straight over a set everytime that happens means I would be ahead in most situations, just unlucky here.

The following is what I said to my other possibly more serious other poker playing friend(min buy in buying into a table for less than the table maximum to reduce risk, but it also means you have the potential to win less):

I GUESS THATS WHY YOU NEVER MIN BUY IN LOLOLOL RIVERED HIM

3 hands later I had to send him this message:

LOL OWNED :( LOST ALL THE MONEY I AHD ANYWAY:(

Dealt to a1214 [ As Ac ]
a1214 raises [$0.12 USD]
kentuha777 folds
Maler81888 calls [$0.12 USD]
pserg777 folds
DaObnoxious1 calls [$0.12 USD]
Fless555 calls [$0.12 USD]
andry00 folds
shirl1989 folds
** Dealing Flop ** [ 3s, 4c, 6h ]
a1214 bets [$0.39 USD]
Maler81888 folds
DaObnoxious1 calls [$0.39 USD]
Fless555 folds
** Dealing Turn ** [ 2s ]
a1214 bets [$1.26 USD]
DaObnoxious1 is all-In [$2.71 USD]
a1214 calls [$1.45 USD]
** Dealing River ** [ Js ]
a1214 shows [ As, Ac ]a pair of Aces.
DaObnoxious1 shows [ 5h, Ad ]a straight Two to Six.
DaObnoxious1 wins $6.41 USD from the main pot with a straight, Two to Six.

Hero is me a1214 and villian is DaObnoxious1.
This wasn't so bad. I got a little unlucky here, but bad play exposed me to this bad luck that I shouldn't have done. Looks like I had aces in early position, my first raise of 12cents is only 2 big blinds, I should have raised at least 16 cents. Ace's is a great hand heads up, but loses a lot of its value against multiple people. Using pokerstove (a hand analysis program) I can see that against a5o and 2 random hadns aces is only a 65% to win.

On the flop I bet 3/4 of the pot. I'm happy with this raise, it makes 2 people fold and I get one caller. Knowing his hand now, from his behalf that was a bad call hes getting like 2.2:1 on his money on an open straight which is about 24% to win by the river, 16%ish on the next card, meaning he needed 4:1 at least on his money to make that a good call in the long run assuming I wouldn't bet on the turn. HOWEVER to his credit, he was getting amazing implied odds. His chance to hit is only 4:1 but if he does hit he will probably get a lot of money (in thise case my entire stack). I bet out on the turn, and he went all in. I looked at the board thought I was safe then he went all in. This is probably where I made my mistake and shoudl have folded. I remember reading an article that basically said never go broke with 1 pair.

I went broke with one pair.