Jump to content

Cuteraven poker stuff


CuteRaven

Recommended Posts

Bankroll is now 3430.45 €

Some context for yesterdays post of frustration: I had some sort of anxiety attack while playing poker. The weird thing about anxiety is it makes your mind completely blank, it's very hard to concentrate and impossible to play good poker. Also when it hits I want to immediately stop playing and if it's an SnG this can mean (and usually does mean) punting off stacks. When you have a burst of anxiety it's possible to forget completely trivial things, like part of the number code for bike sharing that you have been using almost every day for the past month (real example). It sounds ridiculous, and it's almost scary how stupid anxiety can make you be (temporarily). Probably nobody could care less anbout the anxiety but it gives some context to yesterdays post.

After calming down a bit, I stupidly returned to playing poker again that evening (25€ 5 mans, HU SnG). At first I was playing ok, but then the anxiety returned and I had to stop playing again. I was also running bad, and my bankroll went down to about 3150€.

Earlier today I tried playing some 25€ HU SnG, but had some connection issues and I lost 75€ because of that. Don't know if I'm ever getting that back lol. My bankroll went down to about 3075€ from that, though I was able to win a bit back when the connection issues ended and I played some more 25€ HU SnG.

Well, today I was feeling better, and I also went jogging with friends. It's remarkable how well excersize can calm the nerves, it's almost like natural medication. After that I was feeling my normal sharp and happy self and decided to play 100€ cash. I played for about 3 hours and I made a decent profit of a little over 300€ to get to where I am now.

Given that anxiety is still an issue sometimes, I'm going to try and live my life in a way that minimizes the risk of getting symptoms, here are my goals:

-No alcohol at all, ever, at least until New Years eve

-Steady sleep schedule, I will try and stop doing any sort of work or hobbies around 2 am every day and start getting ready to sleep. Only exception is social situations

-Plan out all my meals for the day in the morning, so I don't need to think about it later. I have heard low blood sugar can trigger anxiety...

-Vigorous excersize, every day when possible, no exceptions unless I'm really tired

-Some other short term goals regarding studies and social life

Also I will try to force myself to take a break from poker whenever my mental health goes down the drain. Also given that I'm playing highish stakes nowadays and my swings are larger than the price of a decent used computer, I will probably get a Windows poker laptop for cash games and 5 man SnG, it can't really be too bad of an investment?

660275163_Screenshotat2020-10-0301-37-16.thumb.png.1ff753e0ea3fea2cfd423aec5d23e82e.png

  • Like 9
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bankroll is now 3229.94€

Yesterday I played a quick session of NL 100€ where I lost some funny pots like QQ vs villains A8s all in preflop. In the end it was a loss of 200€ and I wasn't really feeling it, wasn't playing great either.

Today evening I played a 4 hour session which ended up breakeven after a rollercoaster ride of a session. I started off by losing a lot of pots and was over 500€ in the hole.

Here's a somewhat complete list of all the biggest ways I was losing hands:

Trips vs full house, trips over trips, top two pair vs straight on dry board, QQ vs AA, AKs vs KK all in pre, and one big over-bet bluff with 59 on AJ93A that was called by A3 (probably wasn't the greatest bluff but at least my opponents know that I have a few screws loose and might call me light later :D), one bad call with two pair vs straight and generally just not making any hands.

There was also a big hand that I lost with full house vs quads where I had 97s vs 33 on a runout of 37734. Villain tank check raised the river. It seems if players tank check raise rivers they have it often and when they snap raise it’s way more likely to be a bluff lol

Later on in the session I started winning a bunch of hands and was able to get back to even, so that was nice!

Some things I have noticed so far while playing the cash games:

-The longer I spend on a table the higher my EV is, mostly because I get reads on the other players and other players start calling me lighter when they realize that I play pretty aggro

-I need to tighten up preflop a bit, I will study some more cash game ranges

-I need to polish my game in some bluff spots especially (but also other spots)

-A lot of players way underbluff

-Lots of ratholers play. It annoyes me quite a lot tbh

Today I visited family, and life goals have been going reasonably well so far! Anxiety hasn't resurfaced since the last time. Although today I will end up going to sleep a little later than intended.

I decided to post some hands, there were a lot of interesting hands to choose from so it was a bit hard to choose, so I decided to choose some weird/questionable ones :D. I typed the hand histories by hand, I wish I could copy it somehow on the browser client :p.

 

Hand 1:

 

Unibet NL 100 (0.50€, 1€ blinds)

Button seemed like a splashy aggro player who did a lot of donkbetting on flops

Preflop:

BU RFI 2.79€, Hero in BB 3bets with [Q:Diamonds: A:Diamonds:] to 8.87€, BU calls

75.64€ is the effective stack before preflop action for the players in the hand.

Flop [3:Diamonds: T:Spades: 9:Hearts:] (pot 18.24€):

hero checks, BU bets 9.12 €, hero raises All in, BU calls

Turn [3:Diamonds: T:Spades: 9:Hearts:] [6:Clubs:] (pot 151.78€):

River [3:Diamonds: T:Spades: 9:Hearts:][6:Clubs:] [2:Clubs:] (pot 151.78€):

BU shows [A:Hearts: 4:Hearts:] and hero wins the pot

 

This was the biggest WTF hand in the session, what’s going on here? Villain had been betting flops almost always so I thought the over-bet jam would be profitable.

 

Hand 2:

 

Unibet NL 100 (0.50€, 1€ blinds)

MP seemed like a decent standard multi-tabling reg. CO seemed like a decent player that was tightish preflop but not super tight, and pretty aggro post flop.

Preflop:

MP RFI 2€, CO 3bet to 10€, hero on BU with [A:Clubs: T:Clubs:] 4bet to 21.75€, MP folds, CO calls

175.70€ is the effective stack for hero and CO before preflop action.

Flop [8:Spades: 9:Diamonds: 4:Clubs:] (pot 47.00€):

CO checks, hero bets 11 €, CO raises to 34.50€, hero calls

Turn [8:Spades: 9:Diamonds: 4:Clubs:] [J:Diamonds:] (pot 116€):

CO bets 50€, hero raises to 119.45€ and is all in, CO calls

River [8:Spades: 9:Diamonds: 4:Clubs:] [J:Diamonds:] [Q:Clubs:] (pot 354.90€):

CO shows [Q:Hearts: Q:Diamonds:] and hero wins the pot

I think I played this pretty badly arguably even though it won me a lot of money. CO had been raising a lot of flops, and I thought that there is some chance that they were bluffing this. On the flop I thought that I’m in position, the price is really cheap, I have two overs and a backdoor draw, and villain could easily be bluffing so I called. On the other hand villain wasn’t that aggro preflop and the SPR is quite small. On the turn I went with my read and additional equity and decided to punt it off. It was well played by villain IMO, what do you think of my spew here :p?

Villain seemed understandably pretty tilty after this hand and I won more than another stack in later hands from them.

 

Hand 3:

 

Unibet NL 100 (0.50€, 1€ blinds)

CO was a multi-tabling reg who had been 3betting a lot before this hand, but was pretty new to the tables so I didn’t have many reads.

Preflop:

Hero on MP RFI with [J:Clubs: J:Spades:] to 2€, CO 3bets to 9€, hero calls

103.59€ is the effective stack for hero and CO before preflop action.

Flop [3:Hearts: 9:Diamonds: 4:Clubs:] (pot 19.50€):

hero checks, CO bets 7 €, hero raises to 14€, CO calls

Turn [3:Hearts: 9:Diamonds: 4:Clubs:] [6:Spades:] (pot 47.50€):

hero bets 8.50€, CO calls

River [3:Hearts: 9:Diamonds: 4:Clubs:] [6:Spades:] [8:Diamonds:] (pot 64.50€):

hero checks, CO bets 20.00€, hero calls 20€

CO shows [K:Hearts: J:Hearts:] and hero wins the pot

 

Unusual line with JJ featuring small bet/raise sizes. I could 4bet pre sometimes. I could raise flop bigger, but against a player who auto-cbets a ton of flops small sizes work quite well, and also confuse many players. I could also bet turn slightly bigger, but I think OOP it’s ok to bet small sometimes too on a dry runout like this. My line arguably looks a bit weak/bluffy and fishy. What do you think?

 

  • Like 8
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I gave your post a like for the effort of typing out those hands 🤣

just checking if any of those hands is against me... nope lol. Last hand is weirdly played by both but pretty bad by villain, weird float and weird bet on river, guess it's like you say you make your hand look weird and fishy. But he should of have remembered not to bluff a fish 😀

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

@P0kerM0nkYeah probably won't be writing out hand histories very often in the future 🤣

I think my aggro image worked in my favour (as well as the price). Villain probably thought I was for sure bluffing and decided to stab the river small because of that. But I agree it's a pretty strange play, also the 1/3 pricing on the river in an SPR of 1 was pretty funny.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bankroll is now 3317.27€

I played some 5 man SnG. A few 25€ ones but mostly the 50€ level. So a good minor profit! I played 12 of the 50€ SnGs (2 wins, 4 second place) and 6 of the 25€ SnGs (1 win, 2 second place) so a small sample today. I'm only 18th on the leaderboard so I'm far from a contender for the volume prizes right now!

I saw @Dennis__ on most tables and ended up HU with him 3 times 🤣. Also bluffed my stack into his top set once, so those chips got torched hard 🤣

264836640_Screenshotat2020-10-0600-56-49.thumb.png.25537bb9e8eda608523ab20a0843c148.png

 

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Dennis__That's ok! You could search it with the hand ID in the screenshot if you are curious, but no need to.

I ended up folding, I figured that my 3 might block some bluffs and it's not the easyest situation to bluff in when multitabling anyway. Probably lots of 95o type stuff in the range for value. But pretty interesting river decision in any case.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I decided to do some ICM practicing in Icmizers SnG coach, I did the 120 daily questions for a 6 max hyper format. Sometimes I really don't get ICM 🤣. Any ICM wizards out there that understand what is going on in these situations?

638141136_Sngcoachweirdness.thumb.png.1e96e314056789cc46a14bcb6a4f6e06.png2087140190_CantcallKQsSNGcoach.thumb.png.ac73e7cc57db9558776f8db79a945b17.png502744525_WhyisKQacallhere.thumb.png.e174c221d690a2aab22ef512a11f742a.png2017794692_SnGcoachnotacallnowagain.thumb.png.267e7135d5048a4b7d6f498a2d0db122.png1548918368_ResultsSnGcoach.thumb.png.e016a43a418e7dc0fafa2edc704d2edc.png

Seems like ICM is something that can't really be memorized, and I just have to develop some intuition for it (as well as keep in mind to take exploitative adjustments into account).

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I played 6 of the 50€ SnGs and won 200€ (2 wins, 2 second places). Bankroll is now 3513.27€. All I can say is:

577687475_Hagotteeem.png.53421c3290b14213c8690c7883df2d3c.png

Not a very clever or original alias, I know 🤣

Obviously I ran reasonably hot over the small sample, unfortunately the player pool started to dry up and I didn't feel like one tabling. There was a lot of 25€ action, but I really don't like mixing stakes (and I didn't feel like moving down), something about some tables being less important than others is pretty tilting. For example if I would run well in the 25€ and badly in the 50€ that would annoy me a lot. Also the desolate HU SnG lobby didn't inspire me and I didn't feel like playing cash, so today was a short session. I will probably focus more on the SnGs in the weekend (or whenever there happens to be a bigger player pool).

I played around in ICMizer with the situation from the first screenshot from the previous post (2.4 BB on the button) and it is pretty interesting:

-The button could actually jam wider if it had a stack of about 4 or 5 BB (rather than 2.4 BB) in this situation. I think it is because the big blind player can call less hands vs a button shove of 4-5 BB, which makes the button shove more profitable in the ICM world (risk of busting on the bubble becomes smaller).

-If the button has a stack of about 4-5 BB to around 17 BB in this situation, the shoving range gets narrower again. This is quite logical, because the button is at risk of losing more value as the stack depth increases, if called by the big blind.

-If the button had a stack of over 17 BB (so a stack bigger than the one of the big blind), the button can start jamming a wider range once again. In fact, at this stack depth the jamming ranges seem to be at their widest (close to a 47% range), this is probably because the button would now never be at risk of losing their whole stack (which is the big disaster in the ICM world, especially on the bubble) so jamming more hands is less risky.

ICM is pretty funky 🤣

Life goals have been going well, apart from the steady sleep schedule. I seem to really be a fish at keeping sleep schedules steady, will have to try and correct it tonight again!

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

@CuteRaven 

1st hand: BB is going to call us with 100% of hands and deuces are barely any better than ATC. I don´t think there are many regs that fold 22 there though.

2nd hand: the bigstack needs to be preserved. The more chips you have the less valuable even more chips become. If you get it in with KQs you are potentially throwing away a very good situation in the SNG for a small equity advantage. 

3rd hand: there are two reasons. You are in the BB and you are up against the shortstack as the midstack. If you fold you let him take it down he catches up to your stack level, which is bad.

4th hand: same as nr 2

 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

@monkeyheavenThat's a cool strat! I hadn't thought of that, thanks for sharing. I looked at that situation a bit in Icmizer, apparently you can minraise a much wider range than you can jam at 2.4 BB (52% vs 38% range).  I guess the small blind can not guarantee that the button would bust if it just called the minraise and won the pot (because the button is not all in). If the small blind wants to force the button to be at risk of busting it needs to reraise/rejam, but that is of course more risky than calling with the big blind still to act behind, so the small blind has to play tighter like you mentioned, I guess that's why at least.

If the small blind folds the big blind jams any two and button calls every time.

I looked at the stack depth in that situation where button can start to minraise-fold hands vs a jam from just one villain. Button starts minraise folding if it's given a stack depth of about 6 BB or above. If button is given a stack depth of about 8 BB or above, open shoving becomes more profitable than minraising.

Looking at it even further though, I decided to test what would happen if button open limped with 2.4 BB, apparently it can open limp with about a 70% range 🤣. And the big blind player can only shove vs the limp with a 13% range. Maybe open limping is an even better strategy? Or maybe not, because some of the premium hands have lower EV as limps, but maybe the weaker hands having higher EV can make up for it. I'm also not sure how well Icmizer takes postflop play into account. I probably have to do some more investigation to understand what is going on. Or maybe I have gotten my the settings wrong in Icmizer somehow (I set FGS to 5).

If I had seen someone open limp the button with 2.4 BB I would have thought they were more likely to be a fish, maybe not after all 🤣

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bankroll is now 3888.28€

Remember when I mentioned that I might get a used Windows computer for playing more than 4 tables of poker? Well, I got that today, a decent used Lenovo for about 150€, it has some cosmetic blemishes but works just fine under the hood. I had forgotten how buggy and slow Windows can be sometimes though :P. Why does it need a minute to start up instead of 10 seconds? Anyway, that's a first world problem, it works just fine for it's intended purpose!

Once I got home in the evening, I decided to join the late 5 man SnG action. I started by placing 8 SnG tables on 2 monitors, but that was really tilting. I had to constantly turn my head from one monitor to another, and it was a bit hard to keep up. I decided to instead tile the tables on the same monitor so that all the tables were viewable at once, and reduced the tables to 6 or 7, that worked and was quite a relaxing pace to play. I might up the amount of tables for next time. The 50€ started running properly quite soon after I joined, so I could exclusively play 50€ SnGs for a while, before the action dried up (which is also when I stopped playing). My session length was about 3 hours today.

In the end my results were:

6 25€ SnG played (2 wins and 1 second place)  and 27 50€ SnG played (8 wins and 4 second places).

  • Like 7
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bankroll is now 4029.95€

I played for about 5 and a half hours today with a few breaks, mostly 6 tabling.

At first I was playing the 25€ 5 mans since nothing higher was running. My bankroll was going around in circles, I was losing a lot of all ins at one point and running bad in the HU phase. I had also taken an afternoon nap today (bad idea, you just wake up more tired than you started :p), and I was initially a bit tired from that. I eventually recovered to slightly under breakeven, and was planning to end the session there. Then I saw that some of the 50€ were running, so I decided to still join those, and ran pretty hot. Nice to end the day with some profit :D.

The more I play this game type, the more interesting it becomes. For example, if the SnG is 4 or 5 handed and I'm UTG with about 15-20 BB (and average stack is about 20 BB), should I have a jamming range, minraising range, or limping range? As far as I have understood, the anwser is yes to all three :D. It's pretty fun trying to find the balance, while taking exploits and ICM into account. ICM adds a lot of complexity to the gametype too, especially on the bubble.

I'm 12th on the leaderboard right now, that probably won't last though, it's quite likely I won't be able to play tomorrow.

  • Like 7
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ok @Dennis__ . I've been experementing with some open limps. Some hands like 78s or A3s feel like they don't play as well as minraises, because it's hard for them to call jams, but they play well post flop. Other hands like KK or ATo seem to have incentives to either push more equity or take the pot down preflop, and probably play well as minraises. Then there's stuff like 55, which might be nicer to just jam in since it plays so badly postflop. I don't know if these hands are actually good examples, and it's quite tough to balance, of course. Gotta throw in some of those traps, or maybe it's just better to not use a mixed strategy.

But yeah it's a bit weird to play postflop vs a 100% big blind range if it folds through after a limp :p

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bankroll is now 4327.45€

Saw some friends this evening. We ate pizza and just chatted :D. The others drank a few beers, I'm still keeping away from even a little bit of alcohol and trying to live somewhat healthy to keep the anxiety at bay. So far, it seems to have been working!

Anyway, I found a bit of time before that and after that to play 25€ HU SNG and 50€ HU SNG (and two 25€ 5 mans which I busted), and it was smooth sailing.

25 € HU: 8 played and 7 won

50€ HU: 23 played and 14 won

Obviously I can't expect it to go this well every time, definitely some rungood involved :p.

 

  • Like 6
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bankroll is now 4569.11€. I will probably get an extra 30€ for 12th place on the leaderboard in an hour or so.

I played a six hour session of the 5 man SnGs (25€ and 50€ stakes), playing between 4 and 8 tables. The player pool was surprisingly small today, I guess not many people play on Sunday evenings. There didn't seem to be that many mass multitablers today, maybe they were too burned out and had their leaderboard places secured already? Still, it was mostly full of regs. It's pretty exchausting to play these for a long time, dunno how people happily 12+ tables for 12+ hours 🤣.

I was annoyed at one point, because I was bubbling a lot of the SNGs despite having a decent stack. I think part of it was just bad luck and part of it might be suboptimal bubble play, something to maybe work on if I play more of these. Anyway, towards the end I started running pretty well and finished with a decent profit.

The plan to run over scared money still seemed to work decently well in these today! I've made a decent profit from them in the last few days from the 5 mans, but that could also at least partially be up to variance. I'm not sure how much I will play them in the future especially since the 50€+ stakes hardly run, and since it's pretty tough money with so many regs.

OohYaBluffMe.png.e585fbaec74106cf1eccb5d357dd79fd.png

  • Like 7
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...