Prose from a Poshboy

[Marky147]

1.7m heading to 40k bb, 31 left, two levels to go today. Vamos.

Let's gooooooooooooo!!

[cambridgealex]

25th- made the worst fold in history

[Marky147]

Unlucky mate, great run..

[Pokerpops]

25th- made the worst fold in history

Meh, and small comfort but it’s generally better to fold and be wrong than to call and be wrong.

[tikay]

Is there something you ought to be telling us Alex, or more correctly, Alexander Goulder?

45 seconds in to this video....



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_06c_NFyYs4

Click to see full-size image.

[Marky147]

Is there something you ought to be telling us Alex, or more correctly, Alexander Goulder?

45 seconds in to this video....



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_06c_NFyYs4

Great spot

[Doobs]

Is there something you ought to be telling us Alex, or more correctly, Alexander Goulder?

45 seconds in to this video....



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_06c_NFyYs4

Great spot

[cambridgealex]

Is there something you ought to be telling us Alex, or more correctly, Alexander Goulder?

45 seconds in to this video....



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_06c_NFyYs4

Click to see full-size image.

Oioi

[Gazza]

Just caught up on this thread, really enjoyed the updates.

[cambridgealex]

25th- made the worst fold in history

I haven't played a tournament since this and have been musing on what stopped me pulling the trigger. I thought it essential to get to the bottom of it before WSOP.

The details of the hand aren't important - I essentially backdoor a baby flush against Calvin Anderson (known lunatic) but the board is paired and he sets me in for 1.6m into 1.2m pot, 1.6m being 40bbs / average stack.

I remember in all my big tournament spots in my career I had this fear of doing something stupid and I think it all stems from the Monte Carlo J2o hand!

A memory lane refresher - "The Monte Carlo" was a £1k at DTD they held about 5 times between say 2010 and 2012 and was pretty much the flagship event of the time. Winners include Rastafish, Fraser Bellamy, Julian Thew and I think Wadey. I'd won the event in the summer of 2011 for my breakout score - life changing moment and in December later that year finalled it again. 4 handed it was Jake Cody, Rastafish, Me and a (alleged) drug dealer from Norwich called Skipper £90k up top and Rastafish limped the button, Skipper completed the small blind and I jammed 18bbs with J2o from the bb. Rasta had AQ and snapped, and quick as a flash I was out.

I was totally devasted. The chance of back to back, the money but mainly the fact that I'd done something dumb. Well, convential wisdom at the time was it was dumb. Having seen some ICM sims lately that love high low offsuit jams, I wouldn't be surprised if it was a winning jam against their actual ranges to limp here and I was ahead of the curve but I digress...

So PTSD from that feeling I think has shaped my whole career. Now I want to live in peace with the outcome, knowing I didn't fk up. It doesn't sound like a bad thing does it? But playing in fear of making a mistake leads to safe play, which means not bluffing enough, not hero calling enough etc. If you're supposed to bluff 20 combos, chances are you're sure what a few of them are, and you go ahead and bluff those, but there'll be ones you're unsure of, and if you're programmed to want no regrets, you'll always give up those combos. Same principle for hero calling the river. E.g. against Cal - I thought my baby flush was a bluff catcher, unlikely to be shoving worse for value so this fear of busting in this way kicked in. I thought I'd hate myself. When what ended up happening is I folded, and lost my 40bbs in two standard preflop setups within half an hour and hating myself anyway.

It's rare you live in regret for hands you fold like this, because in most cases, my 40bb lasts me a lot longer, so much happens after that that I "get over it" and move on so to speak. So things like this can happen again and again, especially in live poker where it's so rare to even get a deep run, most of them do end in standard ways, so your weaknesses are extremely rarely put under the microscope.

In my WSOP main 37th run is another good example, though I didn't notice it at the time. With about 60 left I was put allin on the river for 13bb into a pot of 9bb and I had middle pair and just knew the guy was bluffing but couldn't pull the trigger. I didn't want to bust the WSOP main hero calling. And because hours passed after, and I peacefully went out with 88 vs JJ (vs same guy as it happens) I remember saying to people, "I'm just happy I didn't bust doing anything I regret".

It's only now that I realise that this mantra could be the reason I've never finalled one of these deep runs in big events.  I've got 4 11ths in tournaments with 250k-600k up top and zero finals. "I run so bad final two tables!" Or do I just play like a pussy?

Click to see full-size image.

Not anymore! Watch out 2023 WSOP - giant punts incoming

[cambridgealex]

I should add, I think the tendancy to underbluff and overfold in huge spots has served me well generally in live poker over the years (people generally have it innit), definitely better than overbluffing and underfolding given the populations tendancies, and probably still good vs the majority. But as people get better you need to get more in line. And you definitely can't be overfolding vs Calvin Anderson!

[Doobs]

I should add, I think the tendancy to underbluff and overfold in huge spots has served me well generally in live poker over the years (people generally have it innit), definitely better than overbluffing and underfolding given the populations tendancies, and probably still good vs the majority. But as people get better you need to get more in line. And you definitely can't be overfolding vs Calvin Anderson!

Good to see you back posting, have been pretty slack myself.

J2 seems ambitious, and not sure folding a small flush is bad.  Even if he flashed the bluff does it make it wrong (am probably spending too long on skypoker?).  I call too much and that feels bad, but definitely depends on reads, there are some I would snap call.

I got it in good in my two biggest comps and still lost in much the same position as you, so getting it in good is overrated too.

[Marky147]

Loving the revival of the blog, and hopefully get to rail an FT or two @ Horseshoe in the summer!

[cambridgealex]

Just played a wild session of $5/10/25 where the standup game was on for 12 hours straight And $100 bomb pots every dealer change.

We're down to two in the standup game: Me and Mike. For those that don't know, the standup game is a game where everyone stands up, and you can only sit down when you win a pot. Last man standing pays everyone an agreed amount, in this case $100. I limp blind utg, my man Romeo makes it $150 utg+1 and Mike and I call. I have the powerhouse that is . Essentially I have to call any two here as if Mike wins this hand vs Romeo, I have to pay $700 to the table. And Romeo has no incentive to stop Mike winning the hand other than just the usual incentive to win whats in the pot! So Mike will probably be something like a 2 or 3:1 favourite to win a heads up pot. There's also giant implied odds with any hand as you'll see.

Flop comes and I donk for $450 and get two callers.

Turn is a and I jam $3k. Romeo calls, and Mike folds.

For some additional background dynamics, the day before, I'd played a $2650 satellite with 14 players, 1st was a $25k seat, 2nd $10k and Romeo busted me in 3rd for a painful pure bubble. So I had unfinished business with this gentleman...Back to the hand...

I can't really remember what I was thinking at the time with my postflop play. There's so many crazy dynamics in the stand up game and making huge deviations from standard play on the fly, total guesswork and intuition. But essentialy I'm up against two hugely wide ranges and I'm just trying to force folds from no pair hands and take my chances and with my equity to avoid the $700 fine.

You end up risking thousands to avoid $700 in this game, and thats the fun part - everyone loses their head a bit. But it probs stacks up in theory also - when you study solvers and realise how close the options are, if you throw in a $700 (28 big blind) incentive then you can imagine how nuts you can go...

Anyway, so I need to beat Romeo to end the standup game. We agree to go twice. First board counts for the stand up game.

Rivers are the and the ....

So on the the top I literally beat nothing. Flush gets there, straight gets there, straight draw makes a pair.

Errrr "You SCOOP" Romeo says...??

He turns over ...

??? The Robbie?? There was no bounty, nor even chat about playing J4...

He even said that he thought I was "a lot lighter than that"....? He literally made a Robbi-esque play (call J4 high on the turn thinking I'm bluffing when he loses to almost all bluffs) with the Robbi hand, without even acknowledging Robbi. SO GOOD <3. More anecdotal evidence that people lose their heads in poker hands all the time

It's a $2500 cap buyin game, I was in for 2 buyins, so to cashout $31.6k ain't bad at all...

[Marky147]

Haha, sounds awesome!

I can probably stand for about 2 minutes nowadays, so I'd be bang in trouble

Great result, too.