Learning slowly

More PLO and a little PLO8 this week, with some interesting results.

On the whole I played better than the opposition except for a brief session of $400 PLO and a brief session of PLO8 at the same stakes.

My PLO game is improving and I am feeling more confident in my hand-reading abilities. Unfortunately, this hasn’t yet manifested itself in terms of better results as I have made some poor people-reading decisions. There are two sides to this big-bet poker coin and I have maybe concentrated on one to the detriment of the other.

At PLO $400, the players are generally more aggressive than at $200, as you would expect. Also, they are more likely to be playing your hand than their own. Obviously this only applies to the better players and its going to be an important requirement going forward to work out which players are playing at which level. Despite this general step-up in the quality of the better players, there are still some total donkeys who play 80-90% of hands and play them badly. This fact alone allows for a great deal of value in the games.

I played against one guy who raised approximately 25% of his hands, calling with perhaps another 60% of them. Strangely, he failed to put in a third raise with a decent AAxx holding, despite being offered the chance to get 80% of his stack in pre-flop. He chose to wait for his opponent to out-flop him before getting the rest in.

My chance to stack him came soon after when a late position stealer raised his SB to $14, he re-raised to $22 and I re-popped it to $44 from the BB with the rather speculative 7544 suited in spades and diamonds. As desired, the initial raiser folded and I was delighted to see the J43 flop containing two diamonds. He bet out on the flop and we got $350 each in with me as an 84% favourite.

Things didn’t always work out this nicely, however. I lost two big pots bluffing, although I do think that they were plausible bluffs, despite both being called by the same player.

Big bluff no.1

A loose player UTG raised to $14 and there were 3 callers before me. I decided to represent AA and re-raised to $44. Everybody behind me folded but the initial raiser called as did the other three cold-callers. The flop was AT2 with two spades and when checked to I wanted to again represent AA and bet $180 into the $230 pot. The initial raiser got a bit stubborn here, in my opinion, and decided that his AKQ3 (no spades) was good here and raised all-in. After everybody else folded I was obliged to call the extra $187 hoping to hit some kind of runner-runner which never came.

Big bluff no.2

About 30 minutes later, after some solid play, I got involved with the same player again. I had built my stack up to $660 since the last bluff and he had me covered. He once again raised in early position to $14 and I re-raised to $32 with Ad6dJsTc. I fired at the flop of 933 (two hearts) and fired again $147 on the 7c turn (making two clubs). The river was the King of clubs and he once again checked to me, so I bet my last $440 which he reluctantly called with a Jack-high flush.

If I had managed to check behind on the river I could have been happy with how I played this hand. I suppose it’s a bit much to ask the guy to fold after hitting his hand, after having called all this money drawing to flushes on a paired board. This is what I meant by reading the player’s hand well, but not necessarily the player’s intentions.

PLO8

I played some more PLO8 this week. I did really well at $200 but got creamed at $400, although I was desperately unlucky here, which actually affected how I played. I am a lot less sure in my hand-reading at this game and as a result I need to make sure I stick to $200 and below for the time being. I’m not good enough at the moment to beat anybody decent at the game, simply because my lack of hand-reading makes me unsure of how to play decent non-nut hands. I need to understand when they are winning and when they are behind. At $200 and below it should still be a profitable game for me as there are some shocking players out there just taking a shot with no clue how to play.

At current win-rates I need another 72 hours or so to achieve the Disney target (see previous posts). Or, as succinctly put by my wife, “you just need to start winning more.”