thejimsheet

I just finished 4th in a 330 person $3 mtt. I hadn’t played a tourney in a long time. It was fun.

Headed to the Venetian, planning to play all day. Send me good luck vibes.

Safina is the only one on either side that looks good right now.

I’m avoiding making a poker post. Lots of sng bad beats in the last 12 hours.

Back tonight after taking time off while Heather was in town.

Fold, limp, limp to me with AA in MP in the 8 seat. I limp. Player to my left folds, good TAG player in the 10 with monster chips raises to 12. Well, that sucks, because nobody is going to call. Wrong. 1 goes all-in for 13. Cutoff calls, button folds, sb calls, bb folds, utg +1 calls, utg +2 folds. Ok, I’ve got 150, and there’s now 70 in this pot. Awesome. Stove top in your faces. I expect to get it HU with over 80% equity, and hell, if I lose, I lose 13. Good TAG actually goes in the tank, but ends up folding. Cutoff folds. Then sb tanks. And calls! He’s got a total of 74. Ok, I’m good with that, too. Now, even if the first all-in sucks out, I make money as long as I win the side. utg+1 folds. I flip my AA. First all-in flips her JTcc. sb flips his K9dd. Hmmmm. And, 368 all diamonds comes right out on the flop. No, I don’t have the Ad. No, the turn is not the first of the runners I need. I pick up my remaining chips and leave. Good luck, all.

Small win at the Mirage and a small loss at the Venetian mean that this hand is pretty much my night.

I love my girlfriend. Heather came in and we’ve had a great time. Went to see Flight of the Conchords at Hard Rock Saturday night. Went to the M and drank some different beers and played some blackjack before hitting up South Point for some bingo Sunday. Met up with some of her coworkers for a few beers last night. She leaves today, which sucks, but it’s been great having her here for a few days.

People figured out sng’s. Double or nothing sng’s. et cetera. For some reason, they haven’t figured out these pushfests. Go to bigstack.com and get your Full Tilt poker account if you haven’t yet. You start with 300 chips. Be patient, cognizant of position, favor pushing to calling, and you’ll make money. It’s been awhile since I did ICM work, but anyone with a good sense of sng endgame can kinda instinctively know proper hand ranges. Yes, you’ll see Ace rag beat Queens repeatedly, but these are the epitome of being able to get it in good thousands of time. Quantity of trials and all that. Good luck and enjoy.

I know I recently pimped the site, trying to get more people reading and commenting, but I’m unlikely to post much the next few days. Heather is coming in tonight for a long weekend, and I’ll probably be staying away from the tables. We’ll see.

2/5 at the Venetian. Guy playing is a guy I respect a lot. He’s sitting on 1500, and villain has 1600. Villian is a Scandi who’s been playing with some speed, but recently has put on the gas even more. For awhile, he and hero were both getting their share, and staying out of each other’s way for the most part. Now, with Scandi’s increased speed, hero isn’t getting his share any longer. Scandi raises to 20 in MP. It actually folds to hero on the button, which is a surprise. Hero looks down to KdTc, and reraises to 60. I would usually just call in this spot, but hero is a very good player. Fold to Scandi, who smooth calls.

Flop KhQdJd. Scandi checks. Hero bets 80. Scandi checkraises to 200. In my mind, I like the bet, although I definitely am only expecting to get two streets of value here. I’m just more likely to bet the flop and check the turn than check the flop and bet the turn, but there were some good arguments at the meeting for doing the latter. If you’re expecting a checkraise with most of his range, I agree with a check behind here. As is, hero calls the check raise. Turn 2d. Scandi bets 400. This is kinda uncomfortable. But, if the checkraise is representing a draw, it’s hard not to bet the diamond here. Hero calls. River As. Scandi looks disappointed, bets 300. Hero calls, thinking he may have just sucked out. Sure enough, Scandi shows AdTs, and hero just 3 outted a chop. Wow.

This is one of the more interesting hands we’ve talked about in awhile. I spend so much time at 1/2 waiting for the nuts and bluffing in the meantime that this kind of really deep, really interesting hand rarely comes up. Anyways, there it is.

Went to the Venetian today after my meeting. I’ll make a separate post about a hand we talked about. Tonight was one of those sessions where I won but felt like it should have been more.

I got up some early, and about half an hour in, an interesting hand came up. I limped in late position with 86o. One of the blinds made it 10, and I have an easy call after there are three callers, and I’m going to have the button. Flop T65 two clubs. Raiser bets 15, middle aged guy calls. I don’t think either of them have the club draw, so I’ll claim all clubs as ghost outs. I call. Turn is the 4s. Raiser checks, middle aged guy bets 15, perfect. I call, and raiser folds. More perfect. I think he might be as weak as AT, but JJ is more likely. A one pair hand, however. I now have more real outs, and am going to now be bluffing lots of non-club rivers, too. River is the 4c. He bets 25. He doesn’t have a boat. I read his bet as a blocker bet, and my “flush” is good. He turns and looks at a woman at the table who came up and was talking to the lady next to him. This makes it even easier. I make it 125. He tanks, which surprises me. Then, he calls, which shocks me. I tell him anything is good and he proceeds to flip over 77. Ummmm, huh. Pretty sick call.

A few hands later he calls a preflop raise, a flop bet, a turn bet, and then a river bet on a 54483 flushed board with A2. Wow.

A little while later he calls 5 on the river and then reraises a late position raiser with Q2 on a 4TQ24 board and loses to trip fours. Wow.

A little while later he calls an all-in on the turn with AJdd (after calling preflop raise, and flop bet) on a KK86 board with just a diamond draw. He’s drawing dead, as the all-in has 88.

A little while later he gets 58 in an all-in three way pot with K9dd preflop, and then bets the third person out of the side on the turn and rivers his diamond flush.

A little while later he gets it all-in with 69h on a 7TJ two heart board after calling a raise and a reraise pre (QQ folds, the all-in has 77), Q turn, K river.

Ummm, yeah, wow. He manages to lose over 800 from the time I sit down to the time I leave, even hitting all those hands. When I played the hand against him, my read was totally different than it ended up being, obviously.

Interesting night.

This may be a long post.

I went to my poker meeting tonight. I was a little disappointed. But, still a good meeting about quantifying the mistakes opponents make.

Then, I went to the Venetian. Sidenote: comps can now be used for tableside massage, which I utilized tonight. My back feels good right now. On to the hands.

I limp/re-raised once with JJ, and took down a pot. The table overall was LAG, but specifically in this case, the initial raiser. It also confirmed that in my short time there, I had a decent image. A couple orbits later, the same situation came up. I’m utg, get two black Jacks, and limp. The same guy raises, but he’s got a huge range here. The difference is that this time it folds back to me. So, I just smooth call the 15. Flop 552 rainbow. Good flop that doesn’t chance a whole lot. I check/call 30. btw, I started the hand with a little about 225, and he had me covered, barely. Turn 7h, putting two hearts on board. I check. At this point, I want to see if he shuts down and/or bets small again because maybe I can control the pot. Sure enough, he bet 40. At this point, I really can’t just call. I mean, I can, but I’m not going to. I still think I’m well ahead of his range, he hasn’t done anything physically to change that read. The problem is that by pushing, I almost allow him to play perfectly, calling with all better hands, and folding all worse hands (although I’m hoping to get calls from 88-TT, obviously). He goes into the tank, which makes me feel better, but then he calls. River 8c, I say just jacks, and he says he missed and mucks when I flip my hand. Maybe he had AKhh, or maybe had some weird straight and flush draws, but I was happy to double up.

About an hour later, I limp/re-raise with KK. A few people at the table had changed, including this initial raiser. He raised to 12 and got 3 callers to me. Picking up over 50 with KK is ok with me. This makes three times in the last few days (twice tonight) where I pulled off a limp/re-raise without callers. It’ll be interesting to see if the situation arises at a time when I’m willing to try the move as a bluff.

I leave, walk to Harrah’s, games don’t look good, so I keep walking. Get a 6″ sub from Subway at O’Sheas and watch drunks play beer pong for a few minutes. I keep walking, all the way to Bally’s.

I am greeted by the most attractive dealer in Vegas, who gets me chips and a seat. Thanks. She’s no Heather, but then again, who is? If I was single, though….you know what I’m sayin’.

I like to lay low for the first orbit or so and get a read on the table. I tend to get in trouble early when I pull moves before getting settled in. Tonight, however, I pick up QQ utg on my third hand. I limp. utg+1 limps, huge stack MP limps (I later realized he was drunk, but didn’t know it at the time). Old guy to hugestack’s left raises to 10 and it folds back to me. Ok, let’s play a small pot/see what happens. I just call, utg+1 calls, and now hugestack reraises, but only to 25. Huh. Old guy initial raiser calls. wtf. I can rere here, but I’m not feeling so good about my Queens. I call, utg+1 folds (I probably call pretty fucking wide in his spot, but his fold is probably good with the type of hands I later realized he must have there; hands that are easily dominated). We see a flop of AJ8 three ways with over 80 in the pot after rake. I check, hugestack checks and now I know he’s scared of the Ace. Ok, that’s good. Old guy checks. Turn 5. A lot of times, that’s a pretty easy bet, but what I really want is for hugestack to bet, old guy fold, and I c/r. No luck. Checks around again. River is a 3. No flush, only 24 makes a straight, weird board. I check, now just planning to catch a bluff. hugestack bets 24. Perfect. Old guy raises to 50. Not so perfect. I fold, hugestack folds, and I have no idea what just happened. This is probably one of those hands I’ll always wonder about.

A little later, I punish the limpers by raising to 17 on the button with T4cc. Except, old guy (yes, same old guy) who limped utg calls. Fuck. Flop Q66 rainbow. He checks. I c-bet, obviously. I bet 40, but think I should have bet 25 or 30 instead. He sighs, says “you’re killin’ me” and quickly calls. I am fucking done. Turn 7, checkcheck. River 9, checkcheck. I tell him it’s his and he flips QTdd. Wow. Awesome. Ok, that’s enough of Bally’s for me. IGHN.

Ok, not that long, but interesting to me. I’ll write more tomorrow.