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Monday, May 4, 2009

Steamrolling 6max

I haven't regretted my switch from full ring to 6max yet as I'm runnning hot as hell at the moment: up $42 in only 1500 hands for a 72 bb/100! Obviously not sustainable, but a welcome boost in terms of results and confidence.
Even better, I'm having great fun playing poker again, still only playing 1 or 2 tables. Nice bonus: I made a king high straight flush that got payed in full :)
I'll probably play some more 4NL first and if my results keep up, I'll add a few 10NL session again to see if I'll do better this time (have a $44 hole to fill there).

Yesterday, I ended up playing HU at one table and even though I normally would switch tables then, I decided to sit down a little longer. We were both sitting with a full stack and after playing pretty conservative for a while, I felt I had a decent feel for my opponent's game. He was limping and checking quite often pre-flop and made minbets or small bets when he didn't have a hand. He also wouldn't lay down his hand often if he had hit the flop. Great spot for me: I started raising a lot of hands and tried to apply as much pressure as possible. After ten minutes or so (could have been five) he called bets on every street with his flopped top pair against my two pair and he lost half his stack.

By now some more players join the table again, and a little later I felt the HU guy and another player. Always feels nice :) How people can 4-table or 6-table HU is beyond me though: I had trouble keeping up playing 1 table 6max and 1 table HU.

Generally 6max seems pretty straight forward: play very aggressive, raise with a wide range of hands and add a (very) few tricky plays (like a check on the flop or a flatcall PF with a big pair). When facing real strength, let it go if you're likely behind. A lot of players will fold too often and the few aggro's are trappable.

I'm still not very comfortable playing pots OOP and I tend to play a lot more conservative when I'm called PF and/or on the flop. I'm aware this is a leak so any suggestions on how to deal with that kind of situations (PF raise, villain call IP, flop cbet, villain call/raise and I have missed) would be appreciated.

On a side note: in episode 9 of this season's High Stakes Poker, Tom Dwan plays an interesting pot with Howard Lederer: Lederer raises, Dwan reraises in position, Lederer 4bets and now Dwan raises yet again! I won't spoil the rest of the hand and the holecards, so head over to youtube to check it out yourself.

In another cool hand Phil Laak and Patrick Antonius go at it and here Antonius makes a great read. Excellent stuff to think about (it would be even better to hear Antonius explain his thinking there).

This episode also includes a nice degen story: at one point Antonio Esfandiari claims his stack is 50k short (as in $50,000!). Since he keeps saying he's 100% sure, it's a pretty bad situation. Turns out there are still 2 25k chips in his paper bag. I would have checked my bag 5 times to make sure it's empty, but I guess these guys handle money a bit differently.

Have a good time at the tables!

Astafas

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