A hand problem

Here is a hand I played yesterday and when I looked back on it, I didn't really I played it well or not:

Villain raises to 10 BB ($0.20) in MP and it gets folded to me.
I'm on the cutoff with pocket queens and I decide to reraise to 25 BB.
I had two reasons: the intial raise was pretty big and I wanted to know if I was up against Aces or Kings, and I didn't want anyone behind me to enter the pot.

Villain just calls the reraise. I really think he would have reraised me if he had Aces or Kings because he was out of position. Since, I don't think he would have raised with small pocket pairs or called with hands like AQ, AJ, I put him on QQ, JJ, TT maybe AK or a smaller pocket pair.

The flop comes 10, 7, 2 rainbow and he checks it to me.
At this point I have about 120 BB left (villain has me covered) and the pot is 100 BB and I shove it. At the time I thought I was very likely to be ahead (unless he did have Aces or Kings or made a set with 10's). He called and showed a pair of Jacks and I took the pot.

So even though I won the hand, I'm not too sure I should have shoved there. I would not have called the push with Jacks so against a better player it might have been better to bet less to induce a call?

What would have been the right play if I had had 200 BB or more behind?

Feel free to comment...

2NL is a crazy place

Because I wasn't feeling top notch yesterday, I decided to sit down at a few 2NL tables at Pokerstars. I only played some 500 hands and made a little profit, but nothing big.

One hand did remind me 2NL is like the bottom of the food chain in poker.
There is an UTG raise to 4BB and I make the call OTB with pocket 8's. The BB decides to reraise to 10 BB. Now the initial raisers shoves (he had about 60 BB), and because I'm thinking at least one of them has to have my 8's beat, I fold. The BB calls the shove.
Well, UTG had a pair of deuces and the BB had KQo...
UTG's deuces held up and he takes the pot.

I did remember players at this level tend not think too much and some even forget earlier streets in a hand: in a 3-way pot, I'm drawing to a flush that I make on the turn. I decide to check it and simply call the bet. On the river, I make a donkbet of 2$ hoping at least one of my opponents is foolish enough to call me and sure enough one of them makes the call.

You see a myraid of extreme styles at these tables: übernits with stats like 4/1/0.2 and wannabe bullies with stats around 35/25/6. I don't mind the first group at all. Most of the time they'll only stay in the hand with the absolute nuts. The second group is a bit more frustrating: you know they'll get stacked sooner or later, but they raise so many pots, you can't really call (because of position). Actually, raises get no respect at all. Raising to 4 or 5 BB has no effect: you'll still end up in a 4-way pot a lot of time.

Well, I want to pick up another 10-15 BI at this stake and then I hope I'll never have to look back.

When you're not feeling well...

... you probably shouldn't play any poker. I've been having head-aches the last few days and I'm feeling very tired. Whereas a couple of weeks/months ago, that wouldn't have stopped me from playing poker, I decided not to play. I most likely would have played a horrible game and lost some or a lot of my bankroll, so it's better to sit it out.

I did watch all episodes of Poker After Dark, the cash game with durrr, helmuth, baxter etc. Even though I think High Stakes is a better show, it sure was interesting to see how different these players play the game. I was very impressed with Dwan's play: he seemed to know where he was in just about every hand. Helmuth behaved (and played) like his usual childish self, so nothing new there. I just think his style is not the most succesful in the toplevel poker of today. Cunningham was solid as usual.

Overall not a bad show, but the host is a joke and the commentary wasn't all that great either. Putting Baxter, Cunningham and Laliberté in one show didn't do much for interesting table talk. Next time, throw Matusow, Laak or Negreanu in the mix guys!

Cya next time!

When luck smiles upon you...

... you can win even when playing bad.

And playing a poor game is what I did yesterday. I even called an allin donkbet on the flop with top pair (just don't ask me why). Obviously I was beat. Again I was making bad calls all over the place, though somehow I managed to only loose 3 big pots: the donkbet, a set over set hand (where a third flushcard on the turn did save me some money) and a flopped top pair (Jacks) against pocket kings.

How did I manage that? Well, being lucky comes to mind. On at least three hands, I was well behind on the flop and caught up nicely :) In one of those hands, I raised on the flop with the nut flush draw, fired again on the turn and made a big bet on the river when I had hit my flush. I figured I had some folding equity on the flop and knew my opponent wouldn't put me on a flush if I hit. The guy had two pair on the turn, but failed to reraise me.

Even better than drawing out: I hit full house twice when my opponent had a set which won me 2 BI. First hand I call a raise with 99. The flop comes A, 9, blank and the raiser bets again and calls my reraise. The turn is a blank and my bet is called again, so I put him on AK, AQ, AJ, maybe AA (though he would have reraised me on the flop). The river brings a beautiful A, so I push and I get a call with AQ.

You would think that drawing out a couple of times and getting these great hands would mean a big winning session right? I ended up with $6 in about 700 hands, so that's how bad I played.

Two things give me hope: I have been up 5 consecutive sessions now and my results could even have been a lot better because most of the time I only loose small pots and the very few big ones are just bad luck or spots where I made mistakes that I know I can get rid of.

Now I just have to prove that...

Down and up

I was very motivated to make a good start for this month when I sat down at the tables last night. The cards, however, decided differently.

First I suffer the classical 2-outer: I raise in EP with AA, get reraised, reraise again etc. so we end up all in preflop. My opponent has kings and sure enough, he hits a king on the turn.

Only a couple of hands later, I limp in EP with 44 and three other players limp as well.
The flop comes 2, 4, 6 rainbow and I bet out and get reraised. We end up going all in (my bad) and they guy had flopped a straight. So, a bit of a cooler there.

So now I'm down about $9 and I'm quite frustrated but I told to myself this was a chance to overcome tilt and I tried to schake it off.

It took me another 800 hands to end the day up $2.50.

All things considered, that's not a bad result: I hadn't gotten that many great hands (and even less great flops) and if those two hands went the other way, I could have been up $22. I did play ok, showing plenty aggression and making a couple of good (at least I think) laydowns. I did call some riverbets I shouldn't have, but since the pots where smallish, that didn't hurt too much.

Better luck next time....