So Easy A Monkey Can Do It

[MadMojoMonkey]

Monky blog. 2013 edition. Welcome to the circus.

Current status:
I'm grinding 4 tables of 10NL on Bovada with a less than stellar 7bb/100 winrate over 30k hands. There is a cap at 4 tables, which I'm outgrowing more every day. My sessions are 3 - 8 hours in length. My daily goal is 5 hours.

I also play a single table of 7-stud H/L @ $0.05/$0.10 ante $0.01 in the late evenings when I am bored of NLHE. I haven't kept records of my winrate, but it's in the green. I'd estimate I'm winning about 5BB/hr. EZ game. I can't imagine playing more than one table of a stud game, though. There are so many board cards and betting streets that I can't hold two tables separate in my mind when I try. Which means I'd need to be beating $0.50/$1.00 to compare to my current winrate at 10NL.

I also play a single table of $0.02/$0.05 PLO8 from time to time, for a few hours each week. I suck. I get quartered so often and almost never sweep the pot. That said, I'm down less than 2 BI over my run, and I feel like there's a huge amount of fishiness at these tables. It seems like a good investment of time to improve at this game.

Major issues:
Ranges. I have a sense of strong/weak most of the time, and I'm good at identifying the value hands in Villains' ranges, but the bluff hands elude me entirely. I'm constantly surprised/amazed at showdowns.

Board Textures. I can't seem to get my sense of board textures into my A-game. When I'm not playing, I have a much better sense of what boards are scary to Villain, not just me. As soon as I'm in a hand, though... I just throw it out the window and start button mashing. Arrgghh! I'm so better than that.

Betting. God damn it! I want their chips in the pot, not mine!!! I don't feel like I'm getting enough value out of my hands. I C-bet the flop sporadically. I don't bet enough thin value spots OTR. I check OTT too often. I bet too much OTT too often. This all goes back to ranges... and board textures... and button mashing.

Here's the plan.
Take 3 - 5 hands per session and go over them before the hole cards are revealed. Put Villains on ranges for all streets. Keep a file of my guesses. Check back when hole cards are revealed. See if I was right. Learn from my mistakes.

Continue posting/discussing hands in BC.

Continue to develop this blog.

[Luco]

Betting. God damn it! I want their chips in the pot, not mine!!!

Yeah this

glglgl sir

[bikes]

3.5 ptbb is p good considering bovada's stupid ass anon system.

gl.

[MadMojoMonkey]

Wow... a lot of time has passed and I've been too lazy to make a good effort at my goal of looking up hands. I have done so, but not nearly as regularly as I intend to.

I put in way too little table time so far this year, which is now facing difficulty since I am working again. I'm making blueprints (they're not blueprints; they haven't been blue for decades, but you all know what I mean when I say that)... I'm making engineering drawings (blueprints) for an company called DRS. Best money I've ever made, and I'm really enjoying the work and the people and the fact that their attitude is like, "Work when you want to work, just work hard and work often enough that your shit gets done."

Poker report:

I've looked up hands maybe 4 times this year, but I've only played on 9 separate days. At ~8,000 hands, I'm up 4.8 BI, which is a little under my EV, but I had some terrible run-bad* on 2 of those days that cost me 3 BI each.

Also, I had 2 days that were break-even, which is extremely rare for me. I attribute it to a more disciplined approach to quitting when I'm not really enjoying myself, instead of grinding another couple of hours until I've either won or lost a couple BI.

* on 2013/01/08 I lost a BI w/ AA all-in pre-flop 4 times in 90 minutes, all on the same table. Also ran my KK into AA shortly after. Then ran AA into AA on another table. Then back at the first table, AK into AA. Down 6 BI in about 2 hours, all but 1 of the hands I was ahead and the favorite when the chips went in.
I was getting AA,KK,QQ all freaking day and just couldn't take a pot.
In spite of all that crap, I only lost 3 BI on the day.

On the up-side, I've been getting more and more adept at playing boards and ranges instead of hands. I've been improving at altering my bet sizing to keep building a pot when I want to, as well.

I've also been hero-calling more rivers and seen a lot of swings there. I am not expecting to win every time I call, and it's hard to tell if I'm ahead or behind in those spots.

[MadMojoMonkey]

Hehe... funny to read this stuff from almost 2 years ago.

I played a few tables of 10NL for ~6 hours yesterday. It's my first time at the tables since the above thread indicates.

My bet sizing is still atrocious, but I feel like I was getting better and better by the hour, which is hopeful.

I was being a bit experimental from the blinds most of the day. I was calling behind and playing too many hands for the first couple of hours. Even when I had the strength, I wasn't 3-betting pre. It didn't cause any major problems, but I did tighten the screws on that by the end of the session.

I really need to put more study in to my play from the blinds.


I lost ~40 BB on the session, which is OK considering it's been more than a year and a half since I last played.

Also, I folded JJ pre on a hand where it was already 4-bet to me on the first betting orbit... After further aggro pre, 2 players were all-in showing TT and 66. Lesson learned... hopefully the right lesson.

[MadMojoMonkey]

I'm getting back into the swing of things. Played 4 tables for 6 hours today. I felt tired most of the session, but not sleepy. I broke even again, with slight gain. I'm damn near 0 win/loss over the past 2 days. I'm managed to limit my coolers to confrontations with shorter stacks, which means my BR is less swingy than expected.

I had a couple of laughable hands today... Snapped of an aggro's shove PRE w/ AK. He shows 65o and finds a runner-runner straight. Very next hand I have JJ, he min-raises, I 3-bet... he calls, flop comes 9-high. He checks, I bet, he shoves, I call and he shows Q9. Safe runout for me.

Next hand I fold A9s where I normally would have played it. It's a strange kind of tilt; folding a good but not great hand when I'm on a streak. I have done this before where if I'm involved in a couple of big pots, I am hesitant to get involved in the next hand with my usual range for that position on that table. I'm worried that people will start playing back at me and I will have to make tougher decisions about whether they're legit or bluffing my (apparent) aggro.

Perhaps there is some appropriate response to this, but folding my already tight range PRE is not it.


Limped pots confirmed a thing. I play so much trash OOP simply because of how often it's limped to me in the BB.

UTG limps and min-raises don't mean a strong range, most of the time.

My 3-bets from the blinds were getting too much respect, in general, so I included some weak AXs hands as 3-bet bluffs later in the day.

[griffey24]

I think folding a normally playable hand based on previous dynamic is perfectly acceptable and a good thing. It shows that you're aware of your table image and that taking the pot down in standard ways may not be applicable at that moment, so you're adjusting. So that's good! I wouldn't call it tilt though, more table/image awareness.

[MadMojoMonkey]

:nod: I see what you mean. I probably knew that at some point.

It's funny how what was in the front of my mind just over a year ago is now some weird sense of direction, without the logic to back it up.


Also... holy crap this is tiring. I must have been brain-lazy lately. I am actually mentally fatigued after a 6 hour session yesterday.

The weather has cooperated and given me a rainy day to go along with my weariness, so it is still a good day.