identifying leaks

i haven't posted anything in awhile because frankly, not much has changed; this month is still about break even give or take a $100 and i'm mainly sticking to small buy-in shorthanded tourneys, as that is where i feel i play the strongest right now. that being said, i have identified a huge leak in my game - i thought it was just that i was going through a period where i was calling a lot - not quite calling station level, but more than i probably should. this would be a big enough leak, but last night i identified why i was calling so much.

i played in a small live tourney before a friend of mine goes away for a month. i limped for 50 on the button in an unopened pot with Q9 offsuit. small blind completed and big blind looks at his cards... thinks for a second and announces raise. he makes it 250 to go. my first mistake in this hand was calling the raise, but i figured i had position, and i hadn't played a hand yet, so maybe i could get a little credit for a decent hand - and i basically thought that the blind could be raising the weak plays with a pretty wide range because i have begun to do it a lot more in my own arsenal online. also, he and i have talked strategy before and this play comes up from time to time.

flop comes j94 rainbow. small blind checks, big blind bets out 400, which was the exact amount i had in my mind if it got checked to me that i was going to bet, so i called. small blind folds.

turn is a Q. big blind bets out 800. i raise to 1600 with my two pair, and after a moment thinking, he raises all in for another 950. if i call, im left with 225. i feel pot committed, as im getting good odds (950 to win 5600) but think i can get away from it if i think im beat which im not sure of yet.

i try to put him on a range of hands that makes sense with the betting. i immediately discount the straight. i just didn't see him making the raise from the blind with that hand, and if he had the straight, it was just stupid lucky that he made it. (not to say that doesn't happen sometimes, but i just didn't see him with k10 or 10/8 this time). he could have two pair as well and while i don't see him raising with k10, i do see him raising with aj,kj,j10,qj and j9. i'm ahead of all those hands but qj. the other possibility is that he has tripped up. maybe he raised with a pocket pair and hit it hard. in my mind i land on aj as making sense mostly because i wanted to believe i was ahead. it wasn't curiosity that made me call, it was that i think he has the capability to make a move on me and it seems the more respect i have for a player, the more likely i am to call.

because i immediately discounted his raise at the beginning of the hand, i was less likely to put him on a good hand, and this colored how i viewed the hand all the way through i did land on a somewhat decent hand when i decide he had something like aj, but couldn't go all the way and give him credit for a pocket pair. btw, he had pocket jj and had tripped up on the flop.

if i had made my raise on the river, i could have gotten him to lay it down as a 10 came and my raise would have looked like a value bet - but i would have been unintentionally bluffing, because i thought i had the best hand when the turn came and his bet did little to dissuade me, even though his betting was telling me otherwise. now, if this was an isolated incident, i wouldn't call it a leak, but i have noticed that i have a tendency to discount people who are raising out of the button or the big blind.

i had a similar situation happen online recently. only this time i was in the big blind. it folded around to the button who had been min raising the button each time it got to him. this was probably 4th or 5th time around the table in a small tourney. small blind folds and i find ak off, so i triple his raise. he calls.

flop comes out j82. i put in a continuation bet of about 2/3 of the pot. he raises me. now while its possible that he had a j in his hand, i didn't think he did. i thought he was playing my continuation bet and raising with position. so i reraised all in and of course he called or i wouldn't be writing about this hand in my blog. i was right, he didn't have a j in his hand. nope he had pocket 8s. and i was out just like that.

now in some ways this is a completely different situation, but not at the crux. at the core, my thinking was flawed in that since i didn't give them credit for an actual hand, i overplayed the hands i had. how do i keep from assuming that they have nothing, but also keep from assuming they have the nuts everytime too? it honestly just seems to be when people are playing out of these two positions that i discount everything.

heres another example... works out good for me, but i still discounted what turned out to be a very strong hand.

4 of us limped in, early in a tourney for 20 and the big blind raised to 100. 1 guy called ahead of me and i called, and one guy behind me called. i had 97 spades. last time around the table, the guy in the big blind had raised his big blind when every one limped and everyone had folded, so that is one reason i called, plus once i had a caller ahead of me, i was getting better odds and i had later position and could see much of the action ahead of me.

flop came out 57a. big blind puts in a continuation bet and guy in front of me folds, i think its possible he has an ace, but could just be making a continuation bet, so i call with second pair to see what he does on the turn. guy behind me folds.

turn is a 9. he bets out again about 2/3 of the pot. now im pretty sure he has an ace - probably with a decent kicker. slightly worried about a9 or a7, but not horribly. i think im ahead. i call and we see the river.

river is a 6. while there is a straight possibility out there, no way i have him on the 8 unless he has exactly a8. he checks to me. now im pretty sure i have best hand. i bet enough to put him all in. he uses his time bank and finally decides to call and shows ak for top pair top kicker and gets beat by my two pair. while this hand worked out in my favor, i still didn't give him credit for a hand until part of the way through the board. my first thought is that he is trying to get the weak limping plays out of the pot. which i guess was true since he had ak, but i tend to put players on a very wide range here and maybe i shouldn't. anyway - im noticing the pattern of discounting hands from those positions, but i don't want to go to the other extreme and assume they have the nuts either.

any suggestions?

peace and love and happiness to all
kk

fresh off the river

well.. im back from southern missouri and rafting on the elk river. had a GREAT time, but good to be back. we were on the river chilling out by 2 or so Friday afternoon and didn't get out until about 7. got up semi early sat, made bfast and battened down the camp and were in our rafts by 10, and didn't make it back to camp until about 6:30, so it was a good long day on the river. that was our first time down the elk, next year we will probably stop more often. got a little sunburned, but not too bad. sad thing was, most of us were exhausted, and we had to come home and play two softball games last night. needless to say, neither went great, although i did catch a pop foul ball for an out while i was catching.

got up this morning and i tell you what, i was ready to play some poker. started the day off right too and cashed in my first tourney of the day. ended up winning a couple today and cashing in a few more. i also finally got off my rear (thanks for the push JB) and found some poker tracking software that i can download my hands and my opponents hands into. its supposed to download automatically for me while im playing but it was frustratingly intermittent. funnily enough, it only worked in some of the tourneys i didn't cash in and none of the ones i did and even then it didn't catch the full history of the tourneys it did work in. i have a free trial for 60 days, so we will see if it gets better over time. im keeping my fingers crossed.

thats about it. good to be back on the felt.
until next time..
peace and love and happiness to all
kk

running well

hi mom. sorry its been a few days since my last entry.
last Thursday was my best day of cashes so far, then i got up Friday in a bad mood and played (and lost) 3 tourneys fairly quickly. wasn't concentrating etc, so i didn't play the rest of the day. i agree with common wisdom, if you aren't in the frame of mind to play then don't put your money on the table, because you will just be throwing it away. i'm lucky to have figured it out after only $35 in buyins instead of 100's.

went and saw coolio's band on sat. nite. that was fun and they rocked it.

been playing better this week and in a better frame of mind, as a matter of fact, today ive already won one and ive only played two.

i had been looking at my tracking sheet thinking i wasn't doing that well until i filtered out those two big buyin tourneys when i was trying to win a seat to the main event. now i feel like im moving in the right direction and im cashing more often than i was at the beginning. definitely a morale booster. when i filter those two tourneys out, i'm right near even (within $50) for the year in tourneys. as i continue to play, i should see that number go above as the frequency with which i cash continues to go up.

im leaving friday morning to go on a rafting trip, but hope to continue to get some playing time in before then.

ive been playing a lot of daytime tourneys and that seems to be a lot of international players. havent determined what the difference is yet between american and european players, but there is something. maybe they aren't as aggressive, not quite sure what it is.

oh well, back to the felt.
peace and love and happiness to all
kk

well...

cash game didn't go bad, but it didn't go great either. i'll need more time in them before i can make an educated decision on which is better for me. right now i'm sticking more to tourneys and will plan on mixing in a few hours of cash games here and there. it may be a case of i play them better in person than online.

think im going to try low limit cash games online

ive decided tomorrow when i log in and play, im going to play low limit cash games for awhile. maybe .25/.50 blinds. i really enjoy the competition and strategy of tournament play, but i like the discipline and card reading ability of cash games. seems to me like tourneys are a preflop game at the limits i like to play, and cash games are a post flop environment. id like to work on my post flop game a little bit

last night i was playing with my friends in the league and just played like horse crap. seems like i got bet off with the best hand and called when i had the worst. couldn't hardly do anything right. (which is an exaggeration - the three hands that are most memorable are what im bitching about, i did win a few big pots, but it only takes one hand to end your game) that being said, i came home and logged in and played a couple of 2 table tourneys to see if i could get the taste of my bad play out of my mouth. ended up winning the second one, so that was nice. as much as i like playing live with my friends, im starting to really see betting patterns online and understand when someone is weak - ive definitely been doing abetter job of reading weakness and have made more plays in position against players regardless of my cards lately than i had before.

hope everyone had a fun and safe 4th of july.
peace and love and happiness to all.
kk

calling with second pair

well im not sure if i was playing good today or not. im going to guess that i wasn't. i played 10 tourneys today and made 5 final tables and only cashed at 2nd once. i am playing aggressively, but i also was calling aggressively- on a couple of occasions i had second pair, or a pocket pair below top pair and after getting it checked to me i bet out only to be raised. based on preflop action in both instances, i didn't think the person had top pair, and the board would have been a weird holding for two pair, so i called. both times they had trips. so new lesson for me is to not forget about trips when im considering what they have. for the record though, i made a couple of calls with second pair and was right too, so the trick is knowing which is which. lets see - i played inconsistently today - but in 2/3 of the tables i was knocked out of, it was a case of getting in ahead and the person catching up to win. i guess thats good about the situation, but it got a little comical by the end of the day. it seemed like i could call for the card that would come on the turn or river to give them the win.

oh well, thats poker.
have a good 4th of july!!

peace and love and happiness to all
kk

back in the saddle

well its good to be playing again. ive spent the last few days mainly playing 2 table tourneys. buyins were between 6.50 and 16. cashed in a few, won one for 108 and am up. good way to start july. poker was pretty straight forward. got knocked out in a couple of tourneys after getting sucked out on and made the wrong read on a couple. overall still feeling good. tried my hand a couple of times at playing two tables at a time. wow. does keep you on your toes, but i can see how you can get into a rhythm. eventually i think ill need to be able to do that to really make money.

check back soon.
peace and love and happiness to all.
kk

I'm back!!

The trip was fun, and although i didn't get a chance to play any poker, i did read a book by gus hanson that gave tremendous insight into his game. it catalogs every hand he played during the aussie millions tourney that he won and his thought process behind all his decisions. it was nice to read a practical application of all the theory ive read over the years.

lets see.... the trip was good. in colorado springs there is a ton to do. we went to pikes peak on the cog railroad. we had a picnic next to a water fall and we went white water rafting. it was the best white water rafting in a long time as the river was the highest it had been in years.
we also went to santa land and rode a few rides, although i didn't go see the big guy, a couple of the other folks did and got their picture taken. also laid out by the pool a bit, and did a little shopping. overall a very good trip.

when we got back - i played in a small tourney and did horribly. we then played a cash game with 8 of us. i was the biggest winner taking home 150 off my 20 buyin, but it should have been a lot more. the drunker a couple of people got the more wild their bets were - and i made some donations i shouldn't have. i will tell you what, the logical process changes a lot when you are drunk and since i was sober i had a hard time following their logic at the end.

i am happy about how i played overall. i came into a lot of pots cheap and in position and was able to take a lot of them down. im getting better at reading when someone is taking a stab and when they have something. i reraised with nothing a few times and took the pots down. overall i felt i played pretty good (even with the late donk off)

ive played 2 sit n gos today so far, but haven't cashed yet, so im down $11 for the day. im getting ready to play some more, but wanted to update the blog before any more time went by.

good to be back.
more updates to come
peace and love and happiness to all.
kk