Most of me was thinking, hey! it's the game of poker. A little part of me was thinking What the Hell, man!? Though, I have to say, I didn't feel tilted. I just felt exasperated when I was dealt unplayable hands and that one time, being dealt KK and had no action. Literally, it was folded to me in the BB. In a live 1/2 game. How often does that happen?
I did manage to get it all back and then some towards the end of my session. I was holding QQ in MP. Raised preflop to $10. Got three callers, SB, BB and the guy to my right who plays laggy, loves to bet the flop hard (also, loves to talk and is quite macho) Flop comes 9d5h3h or something like that. SB bets out small, maybe $6. BB folds. Guy to my right raises all in $30 or so. Hero ???
My gut tells me he has the set of nines. While all eyes were on me, I tried very hard to not think about putting him on a specific holding, but rather a range. A9, K9, overpairs. I call and I pray for another Q to fall to seal the deal.
Turn comes a ten.
River comes a J.
He flips them over fast and shows 99. I flip over my straight.
While I was glad to have won, I wondered if I had made the right decision. $30 more to win $76. 2.5 ish to 1. My equity against his range is about 60/40 which means I'll need at least 1.5 to 1. I think I made the right call. Feel free to comment otherwise.
The hand that I played that sent me over breakeven with having AQ in the hole and stacking two players when the flop came QQx. Checked around and then the turn came a blank. Someone else called all in and I happily called. Beauty.
A highlight of the trip was seeing Asian guy sitting down playing decently, but slowly. Oh-so-slowly. Then he had some food table side. Then he said "when's happy hour?" and had two vodka tonics. After that he loosened up, stopped protecting his cards, made wild calls and became a worse player. What a pity.
It'll be a while before I play again. I have a job interview tomorrow which seems somewhat promising. Plus, my mom is back in town so I'll spend some time with her. Whatever happens, there's Vegas at the end of the month!
Keep up all the good work you're doing in analyzing your hands and reflecting on your play. Pretty soon you'll be crushing!
ReplyDeleteI came across your blog because the title caught my eye in 2+2 and I found that you write well on poker. Anyway, I’m a student and fan of equity theory (because I’m bad at reading people live or online and am thus reduced to approximating my equity against a range), and your equity estimate seems very reasonable. I came up with 36% based on assumptions about what kind of style you say he plays. I’m intrigued as to how you got to this estimate without the help of a model or pokerstove…
ReplyDeleteIf you tinker around with pokerstove long enough, you can kind of make a good estimate. Though, when I was in the hand, I didn't peg a specific number on it, but rather felt that I was 'a little bit better than even.'
ReplyDeleteAfter coming home and reviewing the hand, I put all the stuff in pokerstove and found that my instincts were correct.
I'm not a math whiz, so calculations on the table are really hard for me. Sometimes I can't even correctly add up the pot, haha. But I think routine practice of estimating your equity and then confirming in pokerstove is important to becoming a better player.
Thanks for reading my blog! :)
Hehe, of course... it's interesting reading about the experiences of others who take the game seriously as they try to develop and refine their game at the same time as I do. That's why I love the forums... but hardly ever post... hehe.
ReplyDeleteAh, so you did use pokerstove. I thought that you just came up with number during the hand based on your judgment, which would be ridiculous! :) Even being pretty apt in math, I sometimes don't even know the precise pot size.
Has your bf/coach played in Vegas before? If so, where does he like to play? My gf and I are heading there for a friend's birthday next weekend as well and have never done research on the location subject. I usually just play at the casino that we stay at, but I want to make sure I leave with profit this time :)
We just went to Vegas about a month ago actually! Stayed at Vdara which is in the new City Center. Really nice place. I loved the suites there. We prefer non-gaming casinos so it was perfect since Aria was right across the way and Bellagio and Monte Carlo were just a tram ride away.
ReplyDeleteLast time we went he played at Aria which from what he tells me is a really nice spot. I've heard that Bellagio and Venetian are good too.
Good luck out there! :)