Right so not over jet lag - got a mean 4.5hours sleep and wide awake now (830am local time) but will hopefully be able to catch another hour or two in a bit. Time for some hands from yesterday.
I used to be able to remember hands so well, now they're all just a clusterfk and I can't remember much even from just a few hours ago. I should write them down as I go along, but would rather be concentrating at the table.
Most of the pots I lost early were unavoidable. Hands like this:
Hand 1Open TT utg 300 (50/100), young reg who's come from other table with 15k from 25k starting so lost a big one early on, 3bets MP to 800. Folds to me, I have an easy call here.
Flop 723r I check, he bets 800, I obviously call.
Turn A I check, he checks. Would've been happier with a bet than a check. Think I'm pretty much always losing now.
River A I check and he bets 1800. I fold.
A few other ones like that, and I've dribbled down to 20k.
Hand 2Then a oldish guy opens utg 450, at 75/150. I call
from utg2 and the sb calls. Flop
, sb checks, he cbets 800. I felt he might be cbetting all his pocket pairs here, and only really has sets, AK and AA that can continue on the turn, so with 60% of a straight flush I decided to float. This could be bad, esp with it being 3way so the sb can just have Kx or set too, but on this board, I feel like this guys gonna have to give up his non nutted hands everytime on the turn, as there's no draws, no air I can have, I have to have Kx or a set. That was my logic anyway.
Turn
which is gin for us. He bets 2100. Now I know he has AK or AA for sure. I'm obviously not folding, but I decided to raise to 5100, thinking he could fold those hands. From his perspective, I've called a bet on K64r 3ways, and now raised a 9 turn. Even though I'm repping really thin (66/44), what bluffs can I possibly have? I thought this guy wouldn't want to risk his whole stack in level 2 with one pair (and he has to be worried about an allin river bet once the pot gets this big).
This could be way off and it turns out, it was - the guy was David Einhorn, billionaire hedge fund owner, so probably isn't too bothered about whether his AK is good in a $5k, even if I am "supposed" to have a set!
We're risking 5100 to win 5200, and given I have 12 outs to the nuts and implied odds for the rest of his stack if we're wrong and he does call us, it can't be that bad.
So I made it 5100 and he thought for a while before calling. River paired the 9 and I snap gave up once he checked (he had AK).
Hand 3The weakest player on the table raised to 450 from mp, the David Einhorn called on the btn, and I called in the bb with
playing 8.5k
I check, guy bets 800, DE calls, I overcall.
I decided that I needed to lead this card for value and protection, and also define their ranges much easier this way than guessing if one of them bets. I bet 1900 and the original raiser calls and DE folds. Putting him on draws and better Jx / overpairs.
I obviously check, he very quickly bets 3500. I have 5k left. I think this is an easy hero call if you think about it. This size is not a nutted size, when the pot is 7.6k and I have 5k left, so thought flush was unlikely, also he took slightly too long to call on the turn to have a flush draw, which given he raised preflop would likely be nutted with a gutshot as well. Obviously that's not solid, but just another thing that was on my mind, his timing felt more like an AK, AQ, KQ sort of call that he wasn't sure about, rather than a nutted combo draw.
And I ruled out AJ, QQ+ with a high degree of certainty because he bet so quickly when the flop flush draw got there. He'd be worried about this card with these hands and either check back or think then bet. So i called pretty happily, and won vs KQo.
Hand 4There mustve been some pot that got me to 30 odd k, because that's what I started the hand with Jacobsen with. The details aren't important, basically I raised
, he peeled bb with 89o, flop
he check raises, I call, turn
he bets I call, river
he puts me in for like 17k into like 25k and I call. Buzzing now! Briefly...
Hand 5Now I didn't know who this guy was at the time, he'd played semi straight forward, with one bad bluff (imo) so didn't think he was particularly good, otherwise would just flat pre here.
250/500/50 he opens mp 1100, Im mp2 with
and 3bet to 2600, he calls.
he checks, I bet 2200, he calls
he checks, I bet 5100, he calls.
Pot is 21k he has 32k back.
Here's my mistake. I didn't check. I should check this. He has 10 combos of boats/quads, AKss, AQss, AJss 3 combos, and QQ probably doesn't 4bet this deep, so lets say 5 combos of QQ, that call or raise us. Total: 18 combos.
Worse hands that can call us, 44,66, 88, 99,TT, 30 combos. Probability of him calling these hands - debatable, could be 5% could be 80% . Spoken to some players I really respect about this, and they say we'd have to assume he's a pretty big fish to value bet this. I think without a spade in our hand it makes it even more of a check.
Sizing-wise I went for about 30% pot, 7400, think this is OK if we are going to bet. He went all-in. Damn it.
He can be bluffing with
Kx,
Q as two ideal bluffing combos. Game theory wise it's kinda suicidal to turn any hand without the
in into a bluff, but he could make an exploitative adjustment vs my sizing (thinking I'm not nutted) and turn everything into a bluff here. I didn't think he would at the time. He's risking 32k to win 29k, laying himself 0.9:1 so I need to call him with 45% of my range to make him indifferent to bluffing. I'll obviously be folding all my bluffs, but given I've bet 30% pot, I have like 4:1 value:bluffs so need to fold about a third of my value range as well. JJ no spade obviously is an ideal combo to bet/fold.
So I'm happy with the river fold, even if he was making an exploitative bluff with 44, I can exploit that in the future by having a stronger range when I bet here (not value betting JJ) and using this sizing for my nut flushes as well. In theory...
Hand 6So we got moved, and had about 45k on the new table, with many faces I recognised. I ran like god in the first 10 hands here. had AA vs KK vs a 17k stack, and found QQ and TT in cold 4bet spots when Joe Cheung had 3bet from a small stack, he folded both times, I chipped up in one or two other small ones, and had 87k at peak.
I 3bet folded once, and then played the final hand of note with Joe Cheung. He opens CO 2k, at 500/1k, I peeled bb with
.
I check he bets 2500, I call.
Turn
I check he checks.
River
. I decide that this is pretty much the worst hand I can have in this spot, everyyhing I call the flop with is now either a pair, flush, straight, two pair etc. QJ and J9 more or less only air given I'd probably just get in AJ and AQ vs his 25bb stack. and can rep Kx, flushes and Tx with a 5500 bet here. It's not too small that he has to pick it off really wide, and it's not too big to polarise me. He obviously felt differently and called with 22.
So we bagged up 63k. Felt like I got put through it a bit today, but I learned some good lessons, and am ready to battle again later on today. Some nicer table draws would be nice though...
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