I love Full Tilt...

FTP and I have a love/hate relationship. For all the days it pisses me off to no end there are days where I want to give it my man love as though it were Tina Fey (ppl on the off topic board should appreciate that one!). Of course we all know that the actual site has nothing to do with it...I just like blaming my losses on something other than me. It is WAY better for my self image.
I played about 1150 hands yesterday and started off by dropping a buy in at $100nl without losing more than $15 in a hand. I just could not hit a flop. After going to lunch I decided to fire up, for the first time, a single $200nl table. I have been told that for the most part $200nl does not have better players than $100nl and that it is just a bit more aggro. With this in mind I thought I would play for a bit.

About 30 minutes into the session I was playing quite well and had a nice run of cards. I was running well enough that my VPIP and PFR% were both pretty high (24/21) for my TAG style. I was up to about $290 when I got involved with the player sitting directly across from me. He was running 35/30 for the session with an AF of 12! He had been very aggro regardless of position and was all-in 2-3 times in the twenty hands we had played. He was also sitting with more than a buy-in (about $245).

The villain raised to $7 UTG and I called on the button with 9dTd. Of course I rarely limp but was looking to hit big and get paid. Plus if I 3 bet there is a VERY good chance I get 4 bet or shoved on preflop at which time I have to fold.

The flop came 8c9sTs. The poker gods are a cruel sort. I flop top two pair but there is 2 to a flush and 3 to a straight. Ugh.

He led for $12 into the $17 pot and I popped him up to $38. He 3 bet me to $112. At this point I have NO DOUBT I am ahead. In my mind his likely holding was AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AT, AJ, KJ, JT, or more or less any two spades. I had seen him get tricky with a hand earlier (checked a set with 5c6c9d on the flop, then bet 1/2 pot when an ace hit the turn) and at least one of his all-in hands was a flush draw. All this info made me think he did not have a set or QJ. I just could not see him firing with those hands. This also shows the value of concentrating on just 1- 3 tables and getting good reads. Most of us are not good enough to be playing 6 tables at once.

Here is where I goofed though. I was resigned to getting all-in and was ok with it, but I just called his flop 3 bet. Why? I have no clue. It was def the wrong play. I needed to shove. The turn came 5d to make the board 8c9sTs5d. He insta shoved for $128 more and I called.

I love being right.

He turned over AJ! Thankfully the river was a blank and I raked my biggest pot ever ($494.10). The best part is that I was not at all nervous and had no problem throwing the money in. This has been a problem in the past as that kind of cash means a lot to me. As a result I have been tentative to get my money in which can be a bad thing.

The good continued into the evening with me winning 4 more buys at $100nl thanks in most part to getting AA 8 times and winning every one. When you win $300 of off AA it makes being profitable a lot easier. All told I won $665 and felt very good about my play. I hope I can make it continue!

Over thinking At Low Limits:

One of the things I struggle with most in poker is practicing what I preach...and I preach a LOT! In fact I kind of think of myself as a Joe Torre type. He was a pretty good baseball player but is a great coach. While I am in no way suggesting I am a pretty good poker player or that I am a great poker coach, the parallel is there. I think, hope actually, that I give very good advice and analysis to other CR members on the low limit board. Of course when I play I will often ignore my own advice and take some pretty ugly lines.

In the past I have been particularly guilty of over thinking hands. I really believe this is a major problem with many of my peers as well. At $100nl, 98% of players are not paying attention to betting patterns, VPIP's, or PFR%. Unless a particular player really stands out they don't know who's aggro or nitty. They are too busing watching TV, thinking about which party to go to or who's mom is the hottest, surfing the net, downloading music, etc. to play anything more than the 2 cards directly in front of them.

When you are in a hand with 88 and think to yourself, "He cannot call here because my check raise on the flop and lead on the turn represented blah blah blah" there is a good chance the villain is thinking, "is my pizza done yet?" as he calls your shove with TT on an AK62J board. This is not to say that you should not try to analyze every move you and your opponent make. It is not to say that many villains are not capable of making solid decisions based on the board texture, pot size, and their opponents image. What I am trying to get across is that solid, no frills, ABC poker is the hands down best way to glean a profit at the lower limits. Do not get fancy. Do not bluff. Do not play shit cards and say, "I will outplay them on the flop." YOU CANNOT OUTPLAY SOMEBODY THAT ONLY PLAYS THEIR HOLE CARDS AND NOTHING MORE!!!!

Now, if only I could take my own advice...

Before I go, one last thing: I have PAHUD layouts for Absolute, FTP (racetrack. no avatars), and UB. They include most everything from my previous blog post (scroll down) on PAHUD with some tweaks (The UB layout is not as complete but since I play there so little I have not fixed that yet. It is still quite good though.). I can email these layouts to anybody that wants them. Be forwarned that once you import the layout and save it your old layout is gone forever unless you export it and save it to your hard drive. If you want any of the layouts email me at: midas_poop@yahoo.com or PM me on CR (jeff218) with your email addy. I wll send the layout plus instructions on how to get it up and running.