Misread the boad again

Only played a couple orbits last night, and soon found myself in the following hand. My wife had come into the room and started to chat with me just after the flop had come down, and I suspect that as a male, I can't do two things at once ....

I also had a big pot going on a $1/2 hand at the same time as well.

$4/$8 Limit Holdem
6 Players

Stacks:
UTG $96
UTG+1 $51.44 (39/0 afq 26 hands 33)
CO $491 (43/9 afq 35 wtsd 31 w$sd 70 hands 136)
BTN $277.15 (66/13 afq 34 hands 15)
SB $205.90 (50/3 afq 37 hands 279)
Hero (BB) $372

Pre-Flop: (1.5 SB, 6 players) Hero is BB 8c 8s (nice to have as the first hand of my 2nd orbit)
1 fold, UTG+1 calls, 1 fold, BTN raises, SB calls, Hero calls, UTG+1 calls (calling here for set value)

Flop: Jd 4c 8d (8.0 SB, 4 players) (sweet! hit my set. Not a huge fan of two diamonds but as long as there's no diamond on the turn i'm looking good. At this point my wife comes in to chat, but i've already decided i'm capping this flop, but will cry if any diamond hits on the turn or river)
SB checks, Hero checks, UTG+1 checks, BTN bets, SB calls, Hero raises, UTG+1 3-bets, BTN calls, SB calls, Hero 4-bets, UTG+1 calls, BTN calls, SB calls

Turn: 4d (12.0 BB, 4 players) (at this point i've basically gone arrr crap, that diamond makes the flush. surely one of these 4 was on the draw)
SB checks, Hero checks, UTG+1 checks, BTN bets, SB calls, Hero calls, UTG+1 calls (still talking with the missus, but calling for one bet with outs is a no brainer)

River: 9c (16.0 BB, 4 players) (blah .. missed my outs to a boat or quads)
SB bets, Hero calls, UTG+1 calls, BTN raises, SB calls, Hero calls, UTG+1 folds (made the first crying call here in such a large pot for 1 bet, although since i'm still talking, i'm not really concentrating. Not happy with the check raise from the SB at all and I suspect i'd fold here usually).

Final Pot: 22.6 BB
BTN shows 2d Kd
SB shows Ad 6d
Hero shows 8c 8s

Hero wins 22.6 BB (net +16.6 BB) (hang on ... the chips are coming my way ... duh ... i'd turned my boat)

So basically i'd gone from making what I thought was a fairly poor river call with trips, to fairly poorly playing a turned boat. However, if I had raised the turn, I wonder if they would have raised the river? I may have cost myself a few bets, although thanks to the river checkraise by the SB maybe I didn't.

Still .. its a bad sign when I misread a board, so I quit at the end of the orbit. Won't complain though. I guess the moral of the story is .. don't talk to your wife whilst playing poker .. but if you have to, try to accidently win a huge pot.

Current bankroll: $21,300
November time played: 14h
November profit / (loss): $500

Whoa, another 4 hours played

This is turning into a big poker month for me - only a third of the way through and i've almost played as much poker as I have in each of the last three months.

I had the day off work, so was able to put in a few hours, although day time here is really the offpeak time for poker so the tables were pretty dead. Early morning is the best time, but I just can't be bothered getting up. I'd rather sleep.

Suprisingly though, I still had 3 or 4 tables running for most of the time, although they probably weren't as fishy as I usually play on. That said, my most fishy table cost me the most BBs where I was down 45BBs ... but only at $1/2.

That was mostly made up on another table where I was up around 35BBs (again at $1/2).

The rest of my games basically were fairly even ($3/6 and $2/4 on Cake), apart from a nice and juicy $4/8 table where I was up maybe 10BBs in about two hours of hard slog.

I was having a few connection issues as well yesterday and got dropped out a couple times, but it never cost me. I suspect that may have been caused by the extreme heat here which may have caused a few issues with Telco equipment. I quit for a while after each issue just to minimise the risk of a drop out costing me a big pot.


Current bankroll: $21,200
November time played: 13h30m
November profit / (loss): $450

Comment response

"Yorkshire Pud said...
Can I ask why you seem to play $3/$6 when you are
rolled for $20/$40

Is it you don't feel ready to play even say $10/$20,
I'm just interested that's all "

There's a few reasons why i'm not playing higher but probably mainly because of the psychological effect of having even a minor downswing at those stakes.

If I were to lose say 100BBs at $10/20 then that's $2,000. If I could see it as just chips, that wouldn't be a problem, but at the moment, $2k is $2k to me. Let alone what would happen if I went on a 300BB downswing which I have done a few times at $1/2 on hugely fishy tables.

So say if I drop 300BBs at $20/$40, that's $12k or over half my roll. I suspect that would be crippling psychologically. And it is not really an 'if' but more a 'when'. Sure I could easily win 300BBs before that happens, but i'm absolutely certain that the 'high' that i'd get from winning that much would be nowhere near how far negative the 'low' would be if I lost that.

That being said, I was checking out a $8/16 table the other day, but it just wasn't quite fishy enough for my liking. If i'd jumped on then, that would be the largest stakes i've ever played.

I'm probably playing more $4/8 that I have been in the past now, but also probably more $1/2, mainly as i'm playing a lot on Bodog at the moment where there are never many tables running and their 6max tables are limited to $1/2 then $4/8 then $8/16.

I suspect i'll start playing more $5/10 in the near future though, and play a bit more on the larger networks which have more table availability to actually increase the chances of finding more fish.

I'm still not concerned with how quickly I rise through the stakes - I play for the fun of the competition as much as anything so as long as i'm enjoying the stakes i'm playing, i'm happy. (and winning doesn't hurt either ....)

A swingy weekend

Well, I finally put in more than an hour or so on the weekend, and probably played a solid 5 hours all up.

I started with a super heater - up a good 30BBs on a single $4/8 table and something similar on a $3/6 table on Cake. At the same time I was down about 20BBs on a $1/2 table but that was somewhat irrelevant at the time.

Next session, I started off dropping 30BBs on a $4/8 table against some huge fish. At one stage i'd played 50 hands and only gone to showdown 4 times, winning none of them. All up i'd only won 3 hands without a showdown. However, my fishy friends then paid me off consistently until I ended up around 10BBs.

My last session started again horribly, down 35BBs, however this time I couldn't recover completely and finished around 25BBs down.

Overall, a fairly decent weekend.

Current bankroll: $21,150
November time played: 9h30m
November profit / (loss): $400

Hit n run

Only a brief session last night - tables just didn't keep running so I ended up playing only one or two orbits each before leaving as it seemed every time I sat down the fish got up. I pretty quickly just spat the dummy and quit searching for new tables.

Made a few BBs though as I won a few hands right off the bat, and with a small rakeback credit i'm almost back to square for the month.

Hoping to get in a decent session of play this weekend and with any lucky i'll be in the black again soon. I have accrued enough rakeback that I probably am now, but won't count it in the bankroll until I actually receive it.

Current bankroll: $20,700
November time played: 4h30m
November profit / (loss): ($50)

Cake crashes

A more than irritating problem with Cake Poker for me at the moment is that when I close a table there's a fair chance the whole application will crash. This usually isn't a big problem as I don't often have too many Cake tables running at the same time.

However, last night I had three running and closed one whilst I was halfway through a hand holding KK. It was a $2/4 table and i'd had three callers preflop and another two on the flop before cake crashed. I tried to get back in but only made it just in time to see the river betting, with one guy winning a $40 pot with a pair of 6s. ARGH.

I played a bit on a Bodog $4/8 table where I had found one muppet running at 70/60. I quickly found myself 15BBs down when his 84o crushed my JJ and then his 42s flopped 35Kr rivering a 6 versus my AK. He'd raised both those hands preflop and i'd 3 bet them. Annoying. Given he was so aggro both pre and post flop though I figured i'd eventually be able to get my money back, and kept 3 betting preflop and by waiting for the turn to check/raise on several occasions he did pay me off and I ended up making a few BBs. He actually got up and moved from my right to my left, so I figured that was time to leave.

The $1/2 tables were another story where I was playing on a couple tables where every flop had a good 4 callers - even to my utg raises. Unfortunately for me, with my big hands I whiffed most flops and had very few limping hands to call for multiway goodness. Ended up dropping 25BBs there.

Current bankroll: $20,600
November time played: 4h
November profit / (loss): ($150)

Slowly catchin back up

Only a brief session last night, but another small win booked which is helping to recover from a fairly terrible start to the month. It should have been even better but my fishy mate hit a runner runner in a $80 pot on one hand and the very next hand rivered a gutshot for a $60 pot.

He then donated quite a lot to the rest of the table, but I couldn't seem to win a hand off him. An overaggro tag did hand me some fairly decent pots though when his whiffed AK was not up to my flopped top pair, and later he bluffed into my nut flush.

At one stage I found myself on a 3 handed table and had clicked auto post blind before i'd realised a couple guys were sitting out. First hand both opponents limped into my Q3o and the flop was KQ3r. One guy bet into me, but then folded to my turn bet. I was tempted to stay after seeing the limping but I still don't have a lot of faith in my super short game so figured i'm better off just unchecking autopost and leaving. Stole the big blind on my second hand and then folded my button before quitting for the day.

Current bankroll: $20,600
November time played: 3h
November profit / (loss): ($150)