Fuck Tilt

No really. Fuck Full Tilt. I quit playing there because I ran 40BI below EV in about 200 tourneys and it was getting ridiculous. I'd shove AA, get called by 54s and routinely they'd flop the straight.

So tonight I put some money on Tilt and nine times got 10BB+ in. Six times I was ahead, three behind. Of the six, three 70/30s and three 60/40s, of the three behind, two 60/40s and a coinflip I had the worst of. I didn't win a single one.

Now I know you can lose nine allins straight. And I'm not at all superstitious. But wtf. It's 3/10,000 that I should have that run. I doubled twice in ordinary play, so I did get in more than 10BB and win, but we're talking just preflop shoves.

I don't play high stakes, so this is only like 130 bucks or whatever. But it does feel like I just can't win on Tilt. The play is lol bad, so it's not that I'm not good enough. I mean, if people limpcall with QJ for their 10BB stack, you're not out of your depth. But if they hit the J vs your AQ every time, it doesn't really matter how good you are. SNGs are all about push/fold, and so ultimately are MTTs. You run super card dead for 30-40 hands, then shove when you get something decent, and if you never win one, you go busto.

You called with what?

This pretty much says it all. This is a 40-man $11 game.

http://www.holdemmanager.net
NL Holdem $300(BB) Poker Stars Game#39767157607

Funkytus ($6,178)
FR Vessant ($2,555)
RoLLeR7788 ($3,287)
dhdn1980 ($5,665)
neil_rick ($8,525)
llenti13 ($10,270)
WM80 ($9,043)
canaans ($4,040)
Anarchy-X ($10,437)

neil_rick antes $25
llenti13 antes $25
WM80 antes $25
canaans antes $25
Anarchy-X antes $25
Funkytus antes $25
FR Vessant antes $25
RoLLeR7788 antes $25
dhdn1980 antes $25
Funkytus posts (SB) $150
FR Vessant posts (BB) $300

Dealt to FR Vessant 5s 6h
fold, fold, fold, fold, fold,
fold, fold,
Funkytus raises to $600

Has openraised every time the opportunity has presented. He clearly doesn't have a good hand because his raise sizes have mostly matched his hand strength. I can't shove though because I saw him call off 5K of a 7K stack with J9o when someone openshoved at t200.

FR Vessant calls $300
FLOP ($1,425) 3c Td Tc
Funkytus bets $300

Has nothing, obv.

FR Vessant raises to $1,930 (AI)

Good spot for it.

Funkytus calls $1,630

Check his hand.

TURN ($5,285) 3c Td Tc 5c
RIVER ($5,285) 3c Td Tc 5c 9d
Funkytus shows Qh 5h

What. The. Fuck. Not only does this complete fucking clown call off the rest of my stack with Q5s, no pair, no draw, he has me fucking dominated. I was running well earlier this month, but the last week has been a bloodbath for my bankroll. Sigh.

Fishfood

This was a bit frustrating.


PokerStars Game #38087149596: Tournament #262010133, $30+$3 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level IV (50/100) - 2010/01/13 3:51:26 ET
Table '262010133 10' 9-max Seat #6 is the button
Seat 1: 555DAN (6135 in chips)
Seat 2: FR Vessant (3485 in chips)
Seat 3: unclepaullly (4922 in chips)
Seat 4: cobratatus4 (4195 in chips)
Seat 5: NjLiOnS (17988 in chips)
Seat 6: pAtcAsh83 (2890 in chips)
Seat 7: rsend73 (6475 in chips)
Seat 8: 23121969 (9005 in chips)
Seat 9: kouvidg (7302 in chips)
rsend73: posts small blind 50
23121969: posts big blind 100
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to FR Vessant [8d 8c]
kouvidg: calls 100
555DAN: folds
FR Vessant: calls 100

This is a loose limp, but the table has been very passive and I figure often to see a flop for free. I consider raising the limper to try to get heads up, but I'm liable to get called in more than one spot.

unclepaullly: folds
cobratatus4: raises 350 to 450

That's annoying.

NjLiOnS: folds
pAtcAsh83: folds
rsend73: folds
23121969: calls 350

This guy's a terrible fish. He is playing 69/8 and I've seen him call a raise with K5s. I played one hand against him. I had AK and raised his limp. He called. The flop was 987r, he checked, i checked behind. Turn was a K, I bet and he called. River a T, he bet and I paid off the gutshot that he had hit. My call is a bit marginal because he probably does have at least two pair too often, but whatever.

kouvidg: calls 350
FR Vessant: calls 350

I call with the two fish in because if I flop the set I should have a decent chance to make some chips.

*** FLOP *** [4h Ts Ks]

That's a terrible flop obviously.

23121969: checks
kouvidg: checks
FR Vessant: checks
cobratatus4: checks

So raiser most likely has AQ, possibly a middle pair. The other two can have wide ranges, but you'd expect them to donk Kx.

*** TURN *** [4h Ts Ks] [Kd]
23121969: checks
kouvidg: bets 300

This is a very weak bet for a king and the board has enough draws that he is probably just taking a cheap shot.

FR Vessant: raises 2735 to 3035 and is all-in

So I shove what I expect to be best hand often, with plenty of fold equity if villain happens to have Tx.

cobratatus4: folds
23121969: calls 3035

Unfuckingbelievably, this guy actually had a K. You wouldn't credit it. This is a guy who has bet everything he's hit hard and got paid. This one time he decides to slowplay. Of course it's contrary. This is an awful board to slowplay on, so ofc the fish chooses to do it.

kouvidg: folds
*** RIVER *** [4h Ts Ks Kd] [Td]
FR Vessant said, "ugh"
*** SHOW DOWN ***
23121969: shows [Kh Qs] (a full house, Kings full of Tens)
FR Vessant: shows [8d 8c] (two pair, Kings and Tens)

Oh well. No regrets. My MTT record is very poor, but I do think I play okay. Usually, the fish has 77 in this spot and rivers another 7. It makes a pleasant change actually to be behind! Pity I didn't bink the 8 to punish him.

LOL donkaments

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AKs on a wettish board

Here's my bustout hand from the 33 deepstack I played the other night. I played pretty well in this tourney, and notably only had one bit of luck (got it in with AA vs a set of jacks and rivered another ace!).

Villain in this hand had been at my table earlier, and was playing a sort of semitag game. He seemed to have a clue.

So that I can discuss his play as well as mine, I'll tell you straight up that he has 65s.

Poker Stars $30+$3 No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t500/t1000 Blinds + t100 - 7 players - http://www.thehandconverter.com/hands/464293
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

Hero (UTG+1): t30171 M = 13.71
MP: t8713 M = 3.96
CO: t108150 M = 49.16
BTN: t105323 M = 47.87
SB: t159768 M = 72.62
BB: t115550 M = 52.52
UTG: t127325 M = 57.88

Pre Flop: (t2200) Hero is UTG+1 with As Ks
1 fold, Hero raises to t3000, 3 folds, SB calls t2500, 1 fold


Not sure why I raised 3x because 2.5x is standard, but it could just have been laziness/tiredness.

When he calls, what do I think he has? I guess I'm putting him on broadways and pairs. I didn't know he was bad enough to call with SCs.

Why is that bad imo? I only have 27BB behind, so the implied odds aren't there. If you do flop a huge hand and stack me, you are only getting 12/1, and you won't do that very often. Playing draws OOP is difficult. We're a bit deep to CR allin, so if he hits a decent draw, he's going to often be flatting the flop and then hoping I have missed so he gets odds to draw. When I haven't missed or I barrel, he's usually taking two bad bets to try to hit it.

I suppose that if he hits a pair he can checkcall and then if I check my whiffed hands behind on the turn, he can hope for a cheap showdown. But if a high card comes on the river, at least on dry boards he's going to be unsure if I bet whether he is just valuetowning himself if he calls.

Say you have an 863r flop, he checks, you bet, he calls. His hand is pretty face up. He has to have a pair, probably lower than 88. The turn is, say, a J or a 2, he checks I check behind. Now the river is a Q. He checks again. If I bet here, can he call with his pair of 6s? I mean, people do, but you have to put your opponent on AK/AT/A9/KT if you do. Do I bluff with them more often than I actually have AQ/KQ, a cute QJ/JT/Q9s? Most people do not, in my experience, bluff here, so no, I think you have to fold your 65s.

Also, on flops that really aren't good for me, I can check behind and see a free turn. So he also doesn't necessarily get value for his pair on a lot of flops.

Flop: (t7700) Kd Tc 6d (2 players)

So I hit the flop. This is a terrible flop for handreading, but obv. a good one for a shorty who wants to make value from his AKs.

SB checks, Hero bets t4000, SB calls t4000

I bet fairly small in the hope of inducing action from Kx and to keep the draws in so I can bet again on the turn. I actually bet far too small and should have made it more like 6000 so that I'm not overbetting the turn so much.

On safe turns, I am always going to be shoving. His range for calling the flop is imo weak Kx/Tx/maybe 6x/flush draws/any broadways. He's not going to fold AQ/AJ/QJ for instance. Probably won't fold Q9/J9 even. And he may well call with any pairs that he had preflop.

So basically he is going to be calling with pretty much his entire preflop range. I didn't expect hands as weak as 65s to be in there, so I wouldn't expect to see 87s either. 98s is barely possible, T9s obviously is Tx and will mostly call.

So my bet is a mistake. Given that he's not folding anything, I should bet more! I want to get value from my hand. Yes, I can already be beat some of the time. If he has 66/TT/KT or the unlikely KK, I'm fucked. But he has a vast range of hands I crush. This guy was fairly aggro so I was sort of hoping that he might give more action with KQ/KJ and even other broadway draws. QJ has 14 outs against AT/99 for instance, and he can have combo draws that I'm ahead of but not a ton, so he might raise that and only really be badly behind the top of my range. Still, betting so small was a mistake.

Not because I would have folded out 6x. If he's calling 4K with it, he'll call 6K with it. He has to think I whiffed the flop or not be thinking at all. I think his call is bad because this is as bad a flop to hit a pair on as you could wish for. On many turns, I am likely to shove AQ/AJ/QJs when checked to. I have a lot of outs against Tx and worse and can hope to fold out a lot of hands that beat me, including 65s! If I check behind on the turn, you still face a lot of bad cards on the river and cannot really call another bet.

Turn: (t15700) 6h (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets t23071 all in, SB calls t23071

Why shove the turn? Didn't I just say that I would shove AQ? Well, on many turns I probably would, but not so much on this one. The paired board just makes it more likely for Tx/99-88 to call.

The reason I shove is pretty simple. Say he has QJo. If I bet 9K here and he calls, the pot is 33K and I have 14K behind. The river comes Ac. He puts me in. Can I fold? Getting better than 3/1 with 14BB I don't think so. Make it a 9 and it's even harder. Can I fold when a diamond comes? Very tough because it's such an obvious card to bluff on. I'm not likely to have a diamond draw after all. So I think I get stacked when his draws come in.

Whenever you are guaranteed to get stacked on the downside, you might as well ensure you get doubled on the upside. So I shove to force draws to double me when they miss. If they fold, I'm cool with that. I take down a nice pot and on that board, tbh, there aren't a ton of hands you're getting three streets with with TPTK.

The thing is, he had a superwide range on the flop and the 6 doesn't change much for most of it. He has a big stack and here I'm overbetting the pot, which doesn't look like it wants a call. He's not ever folding a K. Now, he probably doesn't have KQ/KJ but he can have K9, maybe a suited K8. He may call with some Tx. If they're not calling here, it's hard to imagine they will give me value on most rivers. But the key for me is to make draws pay me when they miss. I surrender the value from hands that might call a bet here but won't call a shove, but in this spot, I am more concerned about getting fully compensated for the times I'm stacked than I am about making a bit of value. I'm short and I won't be any closer to winning for being 9K better off the times he misses.

I don't know that I'm necessarily right but that's how I felt about it. If I was a little bit deeper, I think I would have simply checked the turn behind and called bets in a smaller pot on most rivers. I don't like doing that because this is a super bad board to give a free card on but it does prevent me getting stacked against 6x, which would be more of a concern if I was deeper. If I was deeper still, I'd be making a bet to give draws bad odds because I can then get away from checkshoves. When shorter, I can't, because most $33 villains with KQ/KJ and even JJ are dumb enough to think oooh, I has two pair, shove it over, not realising that I am just never calling with anything they actually beat, and I will have to call off my stack to punish them.

I'm not sure my analysis was all that good, but that's how I'm thinking about it. I was tired and stoned when I played the hand, but I felt like I was playing well. The flop bet is definitely too small, and my thinking was the wrong way round there, but I like the turn shove. I'd have liked it a lot more if he'd had K9!

How is poker going?

About like this:

PokerStars Game #33250242541: Tournament #198265724, $10+$1 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level I (10/20) - 2009/09/24 22:34:48 ET
Table '198265724 1' 9-max Seat #7 is the button
Seat 1: arstug (1480 in chips)
Seat 2: VoxTurtle (1510 in chips)
Seat 3: FR Vessant (1410 in chips)
Seat 4: bouchaco (1670 in chips)
Seat 5: badboyjayuk (1580 in chips)
Seat 6: rawdog7575 (1410 in chips)
Seat 7: WiredSet (1520 in chips)
Seat 8: KrazyCraig84 (1480 in chips)
Seat 9: MAGNUM8454 (1440 in chips)
KrazyCraig84: posts small blind 10
MAGNUM8454: posts big blind 20
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to FR Vessant [Kc Kd]
arstug: folds
VoxTurtle: folds
FR Vessant: raises 60 to 80
bouchaco: folds
badboyjayuk: calls 80
rawdog7575: folds
WiredSet: calls 80
KrazyCraig84: folds
MAGNUM8454: folds
*** FLOP *** [8c 7c 6d]
FR Vessant: bets 200
badboyjayuk: calls 200
WiredSet: calls 200
*** TURN *** [8c 7c 6d] [7s]
FR Vessant: bets 1130 and is all-in
badboyjayuk: folds
WiredSet: calls 1130
*** RIVER *** [8c 7c 6d 7s] [9c]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
FR Vessant: shows [Kc Kd] (two pair, Kings and Sevens)
WiredSet: shows [7h 2h] (three of a kind, Sevens)
WiredSet collected 3130 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 3130 | Rake 0
Board [8c 7c 6d 7s 9c]
Seat 1: arstug folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: VoxTurtle folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 3: FR Vessant showed [Kc Kd] and lost with two pair, Kings and Sevens
Seat 4: bouchaco folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: badboyjayuk folded on the Turn
Seat 6: rawdog7575 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 7: WiredSet (button) showed [7h 2h] and won (3130) with three of a kind, Sevens
Seat 8: KrazyCraig84 (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 9: MAGNUM8454 (big blind) folded before Flop

My email to Pokerstars support, subject "Doomswitch"

Hi

Could you turn it off now? I appreciate your sense of humour but this is just sick:

PokerStars Game #31222081385: Tournament #183600842, $5.00+$0.50 Hold'em No Limit - Level VIII (150/300) - 2009/08/03 23:00:31 ET
Table '183600842 34' 9-max Seat #8 is the button
Seat 2: FR Vessant (6290 in chips)
Seat 3: RVRchsngDONK (21317 in chips)
Seat 4: gallory8 (7260 in chips)
Seat 5: Perrin57 (16222 in chips)
Seat 6: Chuckzeduck (9645 in chips)
Seat 7: Rick007 (6825 in chips)
Seat 8: stormswa (8665 in chips)
Seat 9: yurntrbl (1950 in chips)
FR Vessant: posts the ante 25
RVRchsngDONK: posts the ante 25
gallory8: posts the ante 25
Perrin57: posts the ante 25
Chuckzeduck: posts the ante 25
Rick007: posts the ante 25
stormswa: posts the ante 25
yurntrbl: posts the ante 25
yurntrbl: posts small blind 150
FR Vessant: posts big blind 300
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to FR Vessant [4h 4c]
RVRchsngDONK: folds
gallory8: folds
Perrin57: folds
Chuckzeduck: folds
Rick007: folds
stormswa: folds
yurntrbl: raises 1625 to 1925 and is all-in
FR Vessant: calls 1625
*** FLOP *** [Tc Td Ts]
*** TURN *** [Tc Td Ts] [Th]
*** RIVER *** [Tc Td Ts Th] [2h]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
yurntrbl: shows [3s As] (four of a kind, Tens)
FR Vessant: shows [4h 4c] (four of a kind, Tens - lower kicker)
yurntrbl collected 4050 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 4050 | Rake 0
Board [Tc Td Ts Th 2h]
Seat 2: FR Vessant (big blind) showed [4h 4c] and lost with four of a kind, Tens
Seat 3: RVRchsngDONK folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 4: gallory8 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: Perrin57 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: Chuckzeduck folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 7: Rick007 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 8: stormswa (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 9: yurntrbl (small blind) showed [3s As] and won (4050) with four of a kind, Tens


Thanks