PLOlz

[dwh103]

Nope, there really isn't anything particularly interesting. But let's try.

***** Hand History for Game 1111111111 ***** (Poker Stars)
Tourney Hand PL Omaha - Sunday, February 23, 02:47:15 ET 2014
Table 866162772 16 (Real Money)
Seat 1 is the button
Seat 1: Hero ( 2850 ) - VPIP: 29, PFR: 15, 3B: 6, AF: 2.3, Hands: 6665
Seat 2: Player2 ( 3350 ) - VPIP: 24, PFR: 12, 3B: 0, AF: 2.3, Hands: 34
Seat 3: Player3 ( 5410 ) - VPIP: 61, PFR: 26, 3B: 0, AF: 3.4, Hands: 38
Seat 4: Player4 ( 9990 ) - VPIP: 21, PFR: 15, 3B: 6, AF: 2.5, Hands: 34
Seat 5: Player5 ( 3000 ) - VPIP: 9, PFR: 4, 3B: 0, AF: 0.0, Hands: 23
Seat 6: Player6 ( 2410 ) - VPIP: 20, PFR: 0, 3B: 0, AF: 1.0, Hands: 30
Seat 7: Player7 ( 13380 ) - VPIP: 70, PFR: 0, 3B: 0, AF: 0.5, Hands: 33
Seat 8: Player8 ( 2820 ) - VPIP: 12, PFR: 0, 3B: 0, AF: 0.0, Hands: 34
Seat 9: Player9 ( 205 ) - VPIP: 29, PFR: 18, 3B: 0, AF: 2.0, Hands: 17
Player2 posts small blind [30].
Player3 posts big blind [60].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Hero [  ]
Player4 raises [210]
Player5 folds
Player6 folds
Player7 calls [210]
Player8 folds
Player9 calls [205]
Hero calls [210]
Player2 folds
Player3 folds
** Dealing Flop ** [ , , ]
Player4 checks
Player7 checks
Hero...?

I 'm of the view that people play far too wide early, and far too tight late in PLO MTTs. To counter I play position, nutty hands with discipline - so you won't find me in pots with AJ95as or KK72r out of position. I do however, sometimes feel I'm not playing enough hands and can get tempted with very marginal hands on the button.

There are worse hands to call with than the above, but some questions:

 - Does the dry side pot help us in position here? Given that most will be reticent to bet mediocre hands and we can take free cards fairly often, either on flop or possibly to engineer a free card on the turn. Or are we just in a situation where we're not in good shape against a Player 9 who'll see all five, and with possibly nothing to win against the poor players in the pot?
 - It feels this hand is a tiny bit too weak to call here, but at what point does a similar hand become playable? QJT8 with a higher flush draw? Double suited?
 - Can we ever stab flop small to pot control (or possibly rep) turn in the event of improving, plus the outside chance to get heads up with good equity? This is the only occasion we've seen where Player 4 hasn't c-bet.
 - Further to being nitty, my general approach is along the lines of: "I had a plan pre-flop for the conditions under which I'd continue on the flop" - which this flop doesn't meet. Is check/give up in position here ever massively wrong - and does that then mean I should fold pre?

[GreekStein]

I'm pretty much always checking back here.

We will get check raised sometimes and only called by hands that are beating us or have very good equity against us. I think it's better to check back and take off a turn.

[dwh103]

I'm pretty much always checking back here.

We will get check raised sometimes and only called by hands that are beating us or have very good equity against us. I think it's better to check back and take off a turn.

Yeah, I do agree (and did check back which is my standard) - just fired a probing bet when checked to on a turn, which is pretty bad - worse than flop imo - and definitely not my standard approach.

Like I said, was a dull session in terms of interesting hands - perhaps trying to find strategy where there isn't any! But then again, if I get challenged on something that's a sure thing, that'll be the best advice I ever get

[SuuPRlim]

yeh +1greeky.

in fact folding PF might be better in a tourney

[dwh103]

I promised I wouldn't moan, but the reason I have posted in 2 weeks is that it's been nothing bar moanworthy.

Definitely no bad beats though.

Diet going averagely. Could certainly be better but also be a lot worse. Have lost between 1-8lbs (uncertainly due to my scales 7lb margin of error). Not started the whole running bit yet, think I'm going to have to to see some results - but at least I've started measuring/tracking progress. I get there in the end.

Phone interview today. Went averagely, hope it's good enough to get me through to the next stage where I should excel.

Poker. Well I got some backing into Fri/Sat/Sun of the Stars.fr PLO series. Played the Low/Med 6max bounty, the High/Med/Low heads up tournament and the Med/Low 6max main event. Less said about performances and run bad, the better.

Anyway, in the Medium €30 Heads Up, playing the same guy in the €100.

Previous hands of note, both times eff stacks >100BB:

Hand 20:
Hero 3x, Villain calls 3x with
Villain check-calls half pot flop/turn and checks river on .
Is good against my ATT2

Hand 25:
Hero limps, Villain 3x with .
Hero calls
Villain leads 2/3 pot flop
Hero calls
Turn
Villain 400
Hero 1050
Villain all-in for 2.5k effective
Hero AK22

***** Hand History for Game 1111111111 ***** (Poker Stars)
Tourney Hand PL Omaha - Saturday, March 08, 03:39:53 ET 2014
Table 865994559 48 (Real Money)
Seat 2 is the button
Seat 1: Hero ( 6470 ) - VPIP: 60, PFR: 23, 3B: 14, AF: 2.4, Hands: 89
Seat 2: Player2 ( 3530 ) - VPIP: 80, PFR: 66, 3B: 8, AF: 4.8, Hands: 89
Player2 posts small blind [50].
Hero posts big blind [100].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Hero [      ]
Player2 raises [150]
Hero raises [500]
Player2 calls [400]
** Dealing Flop ** [ , , ]
Hero bets [600]
Player2 calls [600]
** Dealing Turn ** [ ]
Hero ??

I have 66% turn bet (3 hands) when bet flop and been called. One of those was the ATT2 airball above, and the other I bet/folded when river paired on flushing board. The only one I checked was with AQTx on KJ5dd when turn was Jack of diamonds.

[GreekStein]

raise AK22 rather than limp it imo

[dwh103]

raise AK22 rather than limp it imo

I'd prefer to raise my SB heads up as a default, but this particular opponent was at least peeling >90% of opens, and having the lead really didn't seem to matter. Didn't see the point of inflating the pot with little fold equity with a hand that's going to flop pretty bad the majority of the time.

[dwh103]

A non-poker post in the main. I've barely played the last few weeks - I started full of hope and anticipation when I begun the blog, but quite frankly I've run like shit and I just don't have the desire to play. Get's pretty dull when you're playing bad and running worse.

One of my best friends who has played poker as long as I've known him (a good 8 years or so) is on the brink of giving up the game. We're both hitting the APAT WCOAP in a fortnight, and I've literally just got off the phone to Virgin to book my WSOP trip. I'm hoping the trip with another really close friend of mine will rekindle my love for poker.

To be honest, what isn't helping is my personal situation regarding employment. I'm on a 6 year streak of job run bad and it's just f depressing. Shit bosses, promises of development and promotions broken with added getting-strung-along, getting an awesome job only for the government to move the goalposts and the offer to disappear, turning up to job interviews only to discover that the company hasn't got a clue what they want to hire - which is no good when it isn't the job and specialism they've put on the job description. That particular occurrence has happened twice this year already.

And today, fuming.

Had a phone interview. It went alright, the manager went through the key aspects of the job and what they do on a day to day basis. It's a financial services based job, and whilst I have some good varied experience, backed up by recent analyst positions and good academics - I hadn't worked in that particular area before. I didn't even need to point that out on the phone, they already knew and it wasn't even a core requirement, just a desirable (and I ticked the other two desirable boxes as well as all the core).

Wasn't particularly happy with my performance, but got a second interview up in London. Was informed on the phone there would be a presentation to bring along, then a competency based interview (CBI - the type that's filled with "Give me an example when you managed conflict/faced a challenge/failed/etc"). That was changed a week later to an on the day data analysis exercise, followed by the CBI. Still fine - prepared hard for the inevitable probing into my work background.

What eventually happened was two exericses to be done in an hour followed by a chat about my approach and what conclusions I'd drawn. After the hour is up they then tell me they want my paperwork, which is covered in scrawls because I was planning a verbal presentation. Bearable, what I'd scribbled was legible, well sourced and very thorough. What wasn't was the critique of my conclusions about a dataset - effectively I was asked how a certain product worked. One of the few product types I've never worked with, a product type not on their own website, and by questions the answers to which are not researchable, as you need to have professional experience about the product type in question so example data isn't publicly available.

And there was no CBI at all, got pretty much shooed out of the building as 'another interview was due' - I could barely get a question about when I'd get feedback in. So it seems what they actually wanted was a product specialist, so they've asked someone who's not a product specialist to give up a days pay and then incur the expense of travel to London, when they already know that person is not a product specialist - and they've intimated that not being a product specialist doesn't actually matter.

A friend says I'm better off out, but the sad thing is that in my situation, if the unthinkable happens and I get a job offer, I basically have to accept.

I am just so sick and fed up of all the bullshit. I'm a bright guy (if I do say so myself), work f hard, got great references and I'd have awesome academics (I still have very good qualifications) if it wasn't for ill health - but it seems like none of that matters unless you know the right people.