Poker has been something of a mixed bag since I last updated my little corner of the internet; you could say it has been like chalk and cheese. I had a terrible session sandwiched between two good one, although the shitty session was almost entirely my fault.
I played nine tournaments after publishing my last blog post, and I feel that I played well. My deepest run saw me finish 13/362. Not reaching the final table stung a little, not least because I had three times the average stack with 50 players remaining.
Another comp saw me finish 53/2,853, and I finished 93/1,361 in another. Throw into the mix a min-cash in another, and I enjoyed my first profitable session since returning to the online poker battlefield. It was only a small profit, but profit nonetheless.
Breaking My Rules and Taking a Beating
Two days after that session, I hit the GGPoker tables when I should have left my laptop switched off. I promised myself that I would only ever play poker if I was not tired, not feeling under the weather, and was in the right mindset. Like a dickhead, I broke those rules.
Having had the shits on Wednesday morning, I drove to Liverpool with the Mrs to collect her shiny, new passport. We had a wander around the Christmas market, which, by the way, is far superior to the shambles that Leeds has put on this year, and drove home. We hit a bit of traffic near the M60 carpark, meaning the round trip took us approximately seven hours in total. I was tired, felt shit, and should have fired up the trusty PlayStation 5 for an hour before hitting the hay. I even swerved the Leeds United versus Swansea game, which is unlike me. Despite all of this, this clown show decided it was a good idea to play some poker tournaments.
The session went as badly as it possibly could. The above factors, combined with having the Leeds game on the TV, meant my concentration levels were non-existent. I played fit-or-fold poker, bet and raised with zero plan, and was overly aggressive post-flop. You would never have believed that I’d played poker before if you’d watched me.
In addition, the Poker Gods were not my friend, either. It was one of those sessions where you ran into the top of villains’ ranges when you were at the bottom of yours, so the evening was relatively disastrous. My only in-the-money finish from nine comps came in the lowest buy-in tournament I played, rubbing salt into some quite sore wounds.
Normal Service Resumes
Having taken a day off following that awful session, I hit the tables with renewed vigour, and was determined to play as well as I possibly could. For the first couple of hours, I pondered every decision, and made some great plays. My aggression was more controlled, and I found myself going deep in three of my ten tournaments.
The first ITM finish was a 90th place from 4,077 runners, which served as a confidence booster. I then finished 75th from 2,280 entrants before one-tabling my way to a 14th-place finish from 649 opponents. On any other night, my bankroll would have increased by four figures. I still turned a profit, but it was tiny.
Top Pair No Kicker
I made what I think is a huge error on my way to finishing 14th. Blinds were 5,000/10,000/1,250a on a seven-handed table, and I have K♥3♥ in the big blind. UTG+1 min-raised, and I called. The flop fell K♦7♦5♠.
Every option I had seemed bad. I flopped top pair but had fuck all as a kicker. Folding is never an option, obviously. Is leading out here bad? I guess we’re calling if we lead and villain shoves because he’s only got a shade under 15 big blinds in his stack after his raise, and the pot is currently just under 5.4 big blinds.
Overbet jamming seems excessive (I’ve got 32 bigs after defending), and I doubt villain is calling my shove with worse. I opted to check and see what villain did. Villain bet almost three big blinds; now what the fuck do I do? Calling seems bad because my hand is already quite weak and there are very few turns apart from a non-diamond three that I’m happy to see. Folding top pair is out of the question now we’re here, which leaves me with ripping it in, which gives villain almost exactly two-to-one on a call.
I jammed, villain snap-called with K♠J♣ and held. GG.
Running The Hand in Flopzilla
Giving villain a preflop range of 66+, T9s+, J9s+, Q8s+, K8s+, A3s+, KJo+, KQo+, and A9o+, which seems reasonable, Flopzilla reckons villain is heavily weighted towards ace high (40.5%), and no made hand (19.5%), although top pair (14.6%), and pocket pair below top pair (14.6%) have us crushed; villain very rarely has an overpair or a set, and never has two pair. Removing K8s, K9s, Q8s and Q9s improves things further, increasing ace high and no made hand, and reducing top pair and pocket pairs below top pair.
I think a typical villain continues here with almost all that range except QJo, A9-AJo, and probably T9s and Q9s. Our friends at Flopzilla states my hand is best almost 76% of the time, and my hand has 65.7% equity against villain’s 34.3. However, I am royally fucked if villain is only continuing with top pair, aces, and diamonds, and flipping against the same possible range but with pocket pairs less than top pair thrown into the mix.
Sticking With GGPoker For Now
The plan is to stick playing on GGPoker for now, at least until I fly off to Vegas on December 10. The field sizes are huge – Poker Tracker 4 tells me my average field size is 2,050 runners – resulting in massive variance, with the WPT World Championship will have upwards of 4,000 entrants, so I guess it’s good practice.
Big fields like these mean your bankroll is almost always dwindling, but one final table appearance can change all that, and a victory comes with a huge payout compared to the tournament’s buy-in. For example, in the MTT I finished 75/2,280, I walked away with $35, give or take, but first place was over $2,000. Similarly, the 13th and 14th place finishes came with almost pointless payouts but had high three-figure prizes at the final table.
I’m at 55 tournaments played since November 15, and want to get to at least 100 before boarding the big iron bird on December 10. One hundred tournaments is almost meaningless for statistics etc, especially when each has 2,000+ opponents, but it will be a nice, round figure to sign off with. Here’s to going out with a bang!