Back to Poker – Nice little session

Posted by on May 24, 2009 No comments

After taking an unexpected break for online poker, it was nice to get back on the swing of things with a nice little session these last two days. So far as I write this post I am over $22 up, which is good for my recreational micro-stakes game, which I want to improve. I have had a very good few months in live and online tournaments, winning an online tournament for $650 approx.  cashing in two casino tournaments and doing well in the winner take all pub games at my local pub (bad structure, technically bad value, but the play is so bad that if I build a stack early I have the best chance when the blinds are large and the game gets mathematical.)

Even though my MTT’s are going well, it’s the 6-Max cash game I wish to improve. Fortunately, Spenda has started an 8-part series on how to beat small-stakes 6-max cash games, I have downloaded the videos and am watching them to learn what I can. I also downloaded MyKQ’s video on pot odds, because on the recent casino tournament I went to, I made a basic mistake on pot odds thinking I had more equity than I had. Every now and then I thought it would be good to learning the fundamentals of basic winning poker, when it’s right to call and when it’s right not to.

This is probably my best hand of the recent sessions I have played, where I won a significant pot:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, $0.10 BB (5 handed) – Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

saw flop | saw showdown

Button ($5.95)
Hero (SB) ($13.45)
BB ($10)
UTG ($10)
MP ($15.45)

Preflop: Hero is SB with 10, A
2 folds, Button calls $0.10, Hero bets $0.50, 1 fold, Button calls $0.40

Flop: ($1.10) 3, J, A (2 players)
Hero bets $0.80, Button raises to $5.45 (All-In), Hero calls $4.65

Turn: ($12) 8 (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: ($12) 6 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $12 | Rake: $0.55

Results in white below:
Button mucked Q, K (high card, Ace).
Hero had 10, A (one pair, Aces).
Outcome: Hero won $11.45

He insta-shoved me on the flop, and I just couldn’t think of a hand he wants to do that with, he bets PF with AK, AQ, AJ. He probably bets 33, he can’t have JJ as he bets pre-flop, so the only thing I could put him on was either A3 which I thought he would probably bet PF, or was bluffing. I made the call and he turns over the KQ for a gutshot, and I can’t figure out why he made that move.

Anyways, still playing, best pay my attention to that.

Toodle Pip.

Hello world – The Perrygarl Challenge $100 to $2500

Posted by on March 16, 2009 No comments

Hello all, it’s been a while.

Well firstly, I must say I am impressed by the look of the site, very professional, better than some of the big-name training sites.

Well, I checked this website out 6 months ago, while I was in Korea. Online gambling is illegal there, so I was up at 3-4am in the morning (if I wasn’t out clubbing) watching the videos and studying. It’s been six months since I came back from Korea, and I signed up to training site Grinder School. But upon remembering about this site, I checked it out again. The blogging section was up so I thought I would include my blog here as well.

You caught me on my second month of this challenge and it is not going well. The first month saw me profit $25 and I should have made more equity-wise. However, this month has seen me have a major downturn in variance. Most likely, I should have lost $20 so far, yet still be up (unsure, as my lappy needed rebooting because of something, and I lost my data.) but so far, I have equity of using $16, but lost close to double that. Big Pairs have not held up, and this has led me to tilting at times, which shocks me as I tend to keep my emotions in check. As I write this, I have $90 in my bankroll. But I am optimistic now that I can get out of this bad patch and start killing the micro-stakes in time to build a proper bankroil.

Not everything is so bad in poker. I recently came 2nd in a £10 rebuy tournament, for £230. After deducting my initial buy-ins and paying back my mates buy-ins (a deal we made before we played the tournament, if we got in the top 3) I was up about £150. My live game has improved as I manage to conceal my tells, while getting some on other players. One thing people don’t tend to consider is the timing tell, and there are at least two players in my home game who are good for timing tells because:

1) It’s clear when they have a hand or not when they bet

2) They are loose/agressive, so that means they could lose significant pots.

This proved good for me when holding 3-3 in a 5-way pot, the flop comes 3-9-9, and it checks round to me, when I bet. A player then check-raises me, and the tell gives me the indication that he has the 9 (plus the check-raise)

I keep to my usual timing of betting before I shove him (they say I overbet, he was short-stacked so it really wasn’t) he thinks, shows a mate, when he calls the mate says why he thought so long before calling, and then went “oh” when I showed the boat.

Live STT’s I seem to get in the money a lot, but lose it heads up by bad luck, a good number of times I am shoving with the best hand, but losing by the river. Again, this will change in time.

So despite my bad swing online, I reckon I can change it back to positive soon enough.

I will be posting videos on Pokertube (search for Perrygarl), so feel free to watch and comment on any plays you think are good and bad. In the end, I want you all to tell me things to improve my game.

Anyways, I am off to the bar, speak to you all soon.

Perrygarl.