Prose from a Poshboy

[tikay]

Hope it goes well Alex, I'll try & tune in later.

[celtic]

Just saw one of my most favourite poker hands ever. I won't spoil it in case Alex wants to talk us through it. (The one you nearly threw away on the flop)

[KarmaDope]

Saw the cumulative results but havent had chance to watch the full stream yet.

Gotta ask though, given how the game played and your vpip at the end being the lowest at the table, is this gonna effect you being in these games in the future like some muppets were saying in the stream comments, or are you still good to crush? I imagine this was a one off for you as you know about giving action

[cambridgealex]

Funny old game. You study hard, prepare well, get yourself in good games, good spots, play your best and lose.

Then you play badly in a bad game and win. Nuts

Real tough night, results aside. Was super card dead most of the night. Then when I did get a hand, the action often meant I should probably fold it, but I felt the pressure because of the stream, the vpip counter, the chat pros, the producer, the needling from the players etc. I messed up a few spots for sure.

I had 17% VPIP (I probably usually get 25-35%) and that was with 3betting J3s, K8s, squeezing T7s, 4betting A6s, 5betting AJs, 5betting AQo. It's about 125 hands of poker. Nonsense sample size. [ ] Chat pros get it.

@KarmaDope yes it may affect future invites. I dunno. It's really tough. The invites get less and less the more they figure out you're a good player. But maybe I played badly enough in the hands that I did play that they might overlook the vpip counter!

It's really tough to play super crazy in a big game, when you fly all this way for 3 weeks, and only get to play 1-3 times for 5 hours each. I wish I could play like some of the other pros that were there, that get to play all year round, super comfortable with the stakes. But when any large pot has a large bearing on how my trip goes, and I am planning 4 trips a year, it's not conducive to playing good poker - at least it wasn't last night. I made two really tight folds in the last half an hour to book the win, which isn't like me, but I've been on such a horrendous run it got to me.

And when I do that, I know it's bad, and you see all the comments in the chat, it's not nice. Nights like that actually make me question whether I'll ever feel at home in a high stakes environment.

I'll go easy on myself and cheer up - like I said, plenty of good play poor results lately, so will take it on the chin and move on. Will be playing 10/20/40 in the commerce every day unless I get another stream invite. And also playing the LAPC and the odd side event maybe. Should I do a staking thread on blonde for old times sake?! Would like to give lots of people small sweats.

[KarmaDope]

Hopefully it doesn't affect future invites, and chat pros know the grand total of feck all. Them and people like Persson aren't helping the high stakes scene, why would people want to even try and play in these games? Much rather play lower games where any old Joe Public can turn up and not get as much abuse from unsavoury characters like Persson and Airball, who are clearly compensating for something

GL in the Commerce and don't let the skint beggars on the rail get to you!

[cambridgealex]

Just saw one of my most favourite poker hands ever. I won't spoil it in case Alex wants to talk us through it. (The one you nearly threw away on the flop)

<3 Sweet revenge for the bad beats he's put on me last few times What a runout (AJcc aip vs KK, K74 no club, T, Q)

[cambridgealex]

Sample size can lead to all sorts of nonsense adjustments. I'm guilty of this for sure. I'll make big deviations from GTO based on a tiny sample. Not with regs so much, but I'll use my biases and experience to quickly label recs based on very few hands. Two walks in two orbits? Nit. 3bet me twice in a row? Nutter.

This can easily backfire, and can also lead to wrong adjustments. Here's a situation from the Commerce yesterday.

The only hand I saw this guy showdown was check calling a river bet in a smallish pot with a backdoorflush, beating the top pair the other player was value betting. I'd only seen the river action, but as a general rule, you don't need to know the rest of the action, if your opponent can be reasonably betting one pair for value, then a backdoor flush should be raised for value.

So what do I summise? This player is overly cautious, tight, perhaps scared money. This player is incapable of making standard value raises. These two statements sound like they go hand in hand. Easy adjustment - I'll fold a lot vs aggression from him. Right?

Well, maybe not.

I did this, had a hand very high up in my range, though absolutely only a bluff catcher, and folded quickly. The board was J95AK with no flush draw and I had AQ. One of his cards flipped as he mucked and it was a 7.

So maybe our read should've been "Incapable of making standard value raises, so could be inbalanced and overbluffing when he does raise" and until we had more information about his bluffing tendancies, don't adjust by overfolding. You can make money off his leak, but it could be by overcalling, and it could be by overfolding, we don't know yet. Or if he just doesn't checkraise enough period, then we make money by being able to valuebet thinner.

[tikay]

Another great write up, thanks Alex. This is poker at a different level to anything I've ever known.


"Should I do a staking thread on blonde for old times sake?! Would like to give lots of people small sweats."


Yes, I think you should. I'd definitely be interested if it was within my budget.

[cambridgealex]

Click to see full-size image.

Only 29 runners, $1200 buyin. But I haven't had THAT feeling, since 2015. And how about that trophy eh?

[tikay]

Congrats Alex, & yes, what a cracking trophy. What is the significance of the chap on the bucking horse?

[booder]

oi oi , nice win Alex

[redsimon]

Well done, that trophy looks amazng

[Marky147]

Well played, mate!

+1 on the trophy

[KarmaDope]

Congrats Alex, trophy looks epic!

[Karabiner]

Nice one Alex - amazing rodeo trophy.

It must be weird seeing snow in LA.