Feb 24

I called this one and got shown 88.

I called this one too and got shown AQ.

I folded this one.

----------------

http://weaktight.com/2053165

Good regular. Plays loose (29/22 ish) so has a wide defending range preflop here. He's the guy who had the AQ above. He's seen me check quite a few flops oop as the pfr with made hands, so I would think that he views my c-betting range as a little stronger than most here (although he probably expects me to c-bet this board ip very wide). I don't have any real history with him in pots where I'm the pfr in position.

I felt that this was a good three barrel spot as I can still have any set, some Kx hands (although not sure if he expects a value bet from them), and I'm obviously barrelling A5 and diamonds on the turn. Does this look good?

http://weaktight.com/2053166

This player was completely unknown to me but he'd been around the tables for a couple of minutes so far. In that time he'd been super aggressive. He 3-bet me the first two hands hu, and I'd seen him 3-bet and 4-bet on a 6-max table. He'd also triple barrelled all-in twice in the very short sample.

I felt like I could call preflop here as his opening range was really wide and if I hit top pair I could just let him barrel away. I think it's probably a fold though. Postflop my plan was to c/c thrice, but then I started worrying on the river as it seems a bit of a crazy spot for him to barrel. Maybe it isn't though as he might expect a lot of pair+draw hands to peel the turn. Call or fold?

http://weaktight.com/2053167

Random fish, no history at all. On the river I feel like he's bluffing an insanely small amount of the time. Does he do this for value with worse enough to call? Maybe a slowplayed AA or something retarded, maybe occasionally a bluff, J4, 65?

Feb 22

Results from yesterday:

http://weaktight.com/2040861

I called and was shown A2. I thought it was a fairly trivial call, but need to check right now.

http://weaktight.com/2040860

I called and got shown AQ. Again I thought it was fairly standard, but I'm not sure now. I think it probably has to be a call as he might shove worse for value sometimes, and if he check raised something that's now a pair and draw he could well shove it.

http://weaktight.com/2040875

Again I called and got shown 22. I think this is a call still as his value range is really narrow, and he shouldn't play his value hands like this usually.

------------------------------

So I think that maybe I'm stacking off/paying off too lightly. Maybe I need to fold more. I'll try and focus in on hands with these sorts of decisions for the next couple of days probably.

Here are today's:

http://weaktight.com/2044049

This guy seems a fairly tight regular. I've seen him flat KQo from the bb against a btn open, he's 3-bet my iso raise and folded to a 4-bet, and I've also seen him bluff twice oop after the flop was checked on 653AT. So he is capable of bluffing.

On the turn here it's just weird to me. It's another spot where I'm just sort of confused as to ranges. I feel like he should check raise his strong hands on the flop given it's 3-way, the middle guy folds, and I c-bet from utg 3-way making my range stronger. If that's true, then the only value hands he can have on the turn are 86s and A6s. It's fairly unlikely he calls 86s on the flop, so that leaves two combos of A6s.

However, do people play draws this way? I mean, he can have quite a few combo draws, and with the 2nd flush draw hitting he can have more now, plus he can have a pair and a flush draw.

I should note that he timed for a fair while before shoving. Do you call or fold?

http://weaktight.com/2044050

This one's against a good, pretty aggressive regular who often plays higher I think. He plays pretty loose so has a wider range here preflop than most regulars. He's seen me check the flop as the pfr a decent amount. I called him on the flop and river with AK on 85576 once and was right and since then he hasn't really been stabbing the flops that often. I've also seen him check back the flop and raise the turn when I lead once.

So when he checks back the flop and flats the turn I think his range is any pair under Tx, and sometimes trips (although I think he raises strong trips sometimes). I doubt he has Tx as I think he bets that. My range can be pretty wide in his eyes by the river I think, but I do think he'd expect me to bet Qx if I rivered it. Given that, I'm confused as to what his big bet means. It seems like it either is trying to get me to fold my obviously weakish range, or it's trying to level me into a call. I feel like he has to have 7x exactly to make this bet as I can't see how he can have Qx, and I don't think he has Tx (or bets it so big if he did).

However, he does have showdown value when he calls the turn, so he has to be turning something into a bluff for me to be good. Call or fold? Or raise I guess?

http://weaktight.com/2044051

This player's a regular who does some weird things. He's lead for half pot on the river oop after the turn checked through with A8 on KK8cc 5J. He can flat A8s from the bb against a co raise (although this doesn't mean he flats AXs v my utg from the sb of course). He can float the flop ip fairly lightly.

So on the river I think he can still have 88, 55, 66, and then maybe A8s, and he can probably have AK as he doesn't 3-bet much. This seems like a really great spot for a check raise from him though as AQ is so close to the top of my range and it's not an easy call at all. However, he probably expects most 2/4 regs to be suspicious enough to look him up with AQ and AJ here. Of course, I'm often using the ace as a bluff card in his eyes too though, so even if he does think I'll sometimes call with AQ then he might still bluff raise. But then his 99 hands would be good. Yada yada.

Call or fold? Or raise?!

Feb 21

I'll start with results to the hands in the last blog:

Hand 1 - I folded. I honestly can't see him ever doing this for value with worse than KQ, and it'd be a suicidal bluff (given that you all said to call I think this is true).

Hand 2 - I'm really not sure on this one. I tend to prefer betting these flops as otherwise my c-betting range becomes really weak on them, however I do see the merits of a check back and I'll probably start doing that now and see how it goes. I really wasn't sure on this one, but in the end I folded for a few reasons. 1, It's kind of obvious I have an ace and I don't think people try and bluff you off that on the river here most of the time - plus I have obviously have AT and AJ quite often. 2, It's kind of really difficult for him to have anything to bluff with. I doubt he's pure bluffing and 3-barreling that often, and he might just check down KhTx or KhJx or similar if he has them on the river. KQ backdoors it's way there too which is a consideration as KhQx or KxQh has to be a decent part of his flop semibluff range. Also, there's no reason I can't have a flush or set which protects me from being bluffed somewhat (and I can have more flushes than him as he should realise I'm opening all hearts on the btn).

Hand 3 - I think raising the flop sucks here without knowing what to do to a shove. I think we'd have to raise/call against almost all regs here if we did raise, and that doesn't seem like it can be the best play. I think there's merit to shoving the turn however. I folded the river, although I didn't really like it that much here as he should expect me to call the turn with so many pair and draw hands. Plus, he bets the turn small enough to barrel the river big and thus have more fold equity. I think I should've called this one.

---------------------

The month's going really badly at the moment. I'm honestly not sure what I'm doing wrong right now so I'm just trying to review and play a lot to get a bunch of hands in and see if it'll turn around. I think I'm making some mistakes in big pots which will be adding up. So sorry if any of the hands I put seem trivial - I'm just trying to make sure I'm playing ok.

Here are some hands for today:

http://weaktight.com/2040861

This is against a fish that seems really aggressive. I've only just joined the table but he's played almost every hand so far and been raising over half of them preflop. This is the first time I saw him limp call. My plan on the turn is to raise/call, or shove every river if he calls. When he donks the river into me do I call or fold?

http://weaktight.com/2040860

Again this is against a fish, but I've literally just sat down and only have 7 hands on him. He's played 5 of those and not raised any. He check folded two flops and check called two when he had a medium pair. Turn - call his all in or fold?

http://weaktight.com/2040875

This one's against a regular. Again I don't have much of a sample. This is the first hand I've seen him flat form the sb, but it's only from 5 samples. He 3-bet one of those and folded the others. I do have some notes on him - he check raised with a flopped flush on K86, and he also 3-bet me small blind on blind on 742 flush draw flop and I folded.

Obviously his line here is pretty weird with anything (and honestly not good in my opinion). Given that he probably defends a pretty tight range from the sb by flatting I think his range for flatting the flop is something like TT-22 (although I think he 3-bets TT sometimes, and check raises it sometimes), then AQ-AT, although AQ probably gets 3-bet and ATo folded. I don't think he should be check raising any strong hands on the turn given it's a good card for me to barrel so he should be check calling to let me fire the river.

So it seems to me like he'll have 99-33 turning itself into a bluff, or AJ a ton of the time here. Therefore I decided to call turn and call any river. What do you think?

Some river decisions

Here are some hands over the last few days facing a river decision:

http://weaktight.com/2030101

This is against a player that I don't know at all. I assume he's a reg but I'd never played with him before and this was his 2nd orbit I think. I think it's a pretty standard triple barrel for value, then when he raises me on the river it's less than a min raise. What range do you think he has here, and is it a call or a fold?

http://weaktight.com/2030103

This guy's a reg that's definitely on the looser side. I only had around 40 hands on him at this point, but he's playing around 35/29. I don't have any reads on him though yet. I assume he defends my 2.5x btn open fairly wide out of the bb. Again, I think this is fairly standard to the river. What do we do to his pot shove?

http://weaktight.com/2030104

Here I defend preflop as this guy had 3-bet a lot over 30 hands on another table. This was his first orbit against my btn from the sb. Once again I think it's fairly standard to the river, and call or fold there?

Specific spot

Thanks to Chris for the reply yesterday - it was exactly what I needed and definitely reminded of a few things I used to do and have slipped out of the habit of. Also thanks to him for sweating me and looking over a couple of hands - those things really make a difference when you're in a rut.

I have a specific situation I want to look at today, and then I'll go back to some session review/hand review tomorrow.

I want to look at when you get check raised and hold a value hand where if you get it in on the flop you won't be doing that well, but if you wait till the turn there are a lot of bad cards. I saved a few of these but they're all on my old desktop so I'll try and give an example.

Say 100bb deep at 5/10. We have AA, raise to $30 and get called, and the flop comes QJ9hh. We c-bet $45 and our opponent check raises to $145.

This is a spot where I'm actually not sure of the best play. Assume our opponent is a reg that's not crazy aggro but not a tight player either (somewhat normal). All two pairs and straights are in our opponent's range (as well as 99), and I doubt they're raising KQ in this spot. They can have some flush draws, but they're going to be strong ones with a pair or straight draw usually.

If we 3-bet and get it in it seems like we'll get it in against a really strong range and it'll possibly be a bad play by us. However, if we call what's the plan? Are we only stacking off on any 2-7 or A? What if it's a heart?

The problem I have as well is if it comes a T and he bets, well this reduces his value range as he probably won't bet two pairs now and might not bet sets. So it seems like some of the terrible cards will allow him to bluff us off the best hand.

This is a spot where I'm just confused. It seems like it's a decent spot for us with AA, but I'm actually unsure of how to play it.

General preflop strategy

Yesterday was probably the worst poker day for me this year. I didn't lose that much money, but I deserved to. I played really bad, my mental state was sort of tired, and I wasn't thinking at all well throughout. It's sessions like this that have a huge impact on your winrate over a couple of months. Just because I didn't lose much yesterday itself doesn't mean I'm "off the hook" and those sessions don't matter. They do, and they'll show at the end of the month when I post another shitty winrate.

I'm not going to go through hands from the sessions today or tomorrow - I want to focus on a couple of things that are specifically bothering me instead. Today I'm going to ask about a couple of general approach things.

I feel like I'm either way too weak or way too spewy at the beginning of matches right now. I need to find a happy medium. One thing I have trouble with is knowing what to defend to 3-bets without knowing the player at all. I hear from a few people that certain hands are too loose without knowing anything about them, but then when I think about the fact I open between 90-100% of hands at the start of a match, and I'm only defending 10% (if that) of hands to a 3-bet at the start then 3-betting me is too profitable. I know they might not be exploiting it yada yada, but let's be honest - most regs at 2/4 and higher are.

1. So, first question, what range of hands would you defend as standard at the beginning of a hu match against a regular you know nothing about?

My next question is about 3-betting and 4-betting ranges. I used to pretty much 4-bet super wide for value at the start of a match against a reg until jungleman saw me do it with either 88 or AQ and said it was way too light. Well I'm not sure about this. I see quite a few regs shove some stupid hands over the first 4-bet - this happens regularly enough to place a decent amount of emphasis on it and apply it to the "average reg".

I also like 4-bet shoving hands like 44 as it's pretty much impossible for them to exploit for that one hand. Mathematically, if they call with AQ+ and 99+ to a shove then they need to be 3-betting something like 14% or more for shoving 22 to be profitable. I think it's safe to say that this is easily true with most regs at the start of a match. I know some people don't like that, but if you take 44 in particular I think it's -EV to call with it, it's zero EV to fold it, therefore if it's +EV to shove it surely it's the optimal play?

So, my approach at the start of the match against a reg used to be (I'm unsure now) to 4-bet/call 99+, AQ+, shove 22-88, and then flat some big suited cards. I don't really flat too many suited connectors at the start.

2. How do you play against 3-bets against an unknown reg at the start of a match?

And finally, what hands are we 3-betting/5-betting to begin with. I probably only start out by 3-betting TT+ and AK, and flatting AQ, 99 and below. I think this is probably a mistake but I'm not sure. Then I 3-bet bluffs obviously depending on how often they open their button. Thinking about what gives me the most trouble, I think I should be 3-betting a lot at the start as it's hard to know what to do given they're unknown. Now, if I'm going to start out 3-betting a lot, I should probably throw in more value hands as well as good hands to 5-bet shove with to sort of protect myself. So if my 3-betting range was 22-AA, AQo, AJs for value (that I'm 5-betting), this is 8.6% of hands, meaning if I 3-bet 25% to start I'm getting it in with a third of my range (rather than about 10-15% of my range with TT+ and AK). This sounds like it'd be a better strategy, and the fact other regs shove liberally to the first 4-bet suggests they've found that it works from experience, but it could be spew.

3. What are your standard value hands to 3-bet at the start? And what hands are you 5-betting with?

That'll do for today.

-----------

http://weaktight.com/1969112 - He had AJ.

http://weaktight.com/1969113 - He tank folded. I'm not too keen on this one though, and I think if I bet the river it should be a little smaller to rep a wider value range or something.

http://weaktight.com/1969114 - This one worked. I think it should if you pick someone who's sane/good, but I probably didn't know enough to make this play, and most 2/4 or 3/6 regs probably just shrug and call a 5 here.

Feb 3

I only ended up playing 86 hands against this guy. He was definitely a reg, but I didn't know anything about him before the session. The match started out quite aggressively (I've been trying to 3-bet more) and I've lost a stack to him already by 3-betting 77 and then shoving into his TT that 4-bet.


http://weaktight.com/1969112

$2/$4 No Limit Holdem • 2 Players • PartyPoker

Generated by weaktight.com.

Hero	$416
BB	$834

• Pre-Flop ($6, 2 players)Hero is SB
• 

Hero raises to $12, BB raises to $40, Hero calls $28

• Flop ($80, 2 players)
• 

BB bets $44, Hero calls $44

• Turn ($168, 2 players)
• 

BB bets $92, Hero calls $92

• River ($352, 2 players)
• 

BB checks, Hero checks

This hand is fairly soon after that. He'd been 3-betting a lot so I think defending ATo is fine. I also didn't think he was 3-betting hands like AJ, KQ, KJ as his flat was quite high. I feel like I need to float this flop as good things can happen to me. We can check down and I win, I can bluff if I think it's a good spot to, he might barrel the T and A, etc. He bets the turn again and I think it polarises him to AA, AK, KK, 4x. I also think he's barreling all gutshots, flush draws, and just pure air a lot given the K. I think I need to call here again. River seems standard.

I guess I want to ask what line I should be taking postflop as standard without much history given my reads so far.

http://weaktight.com/1969113

$2/$4 No Limit Holdem • 2 Players • PartyPoker

Generated by weaktight.com.

SB	$1,021
Hero	$416

• Pre-Flop ($6, 2 players)Hero is BB
• 

SB raises to $12, Hero raises to $40, SB calls $28

• Flop ($80, 2 players)
• 

Hero checks, SB checks

• Turn ($80, 2 players)
• 

Hero bets $64, SB calls $64

• River ($208, 2 players)
• 

Hero bets $165 ...

This one's pretty much straight after. I hadn't 3-bet him since the 77 hand so I thought he might think I'd tightened up. When he flats I think this flop smacks his range pretty well so I decide to give up. When he checks back though I decide to double barrel as I don't think he really has anything strong enough to call. I can represent a few things as well - a flush that was looking to crai, a Kx that was pot controlling, even AA pot controlling. This look ok?

http://weaktight.com/1969114

$2/$4 No Limit Holdem • 2 Players • PartyPoker

Generated by weaktight.com.

Hero	$693
BB	$738

• Pre-Flop ($6, 2 players)Hero is SB
• 

Hero raises to $12, BB calls $8

• Flop ($24, 2 players)
• 

BB checks, Hero bets $16, BB calls $16

• Turn ($56, 2 players)
• 

BB checks, Hero bets $42, BB raises to $108, Hero calls $66

• River ($272, 2 players)
• 

BB bets $176, Hero goes all-in $557 ...

Here's something I was always going on about to you Chris. To check raise the turn for value he obviously needs 5x or 33. He'll check raise the flop sometimes with those - especially given we're deep. If he doesn't c/r the flop he'll just c/c the turn too sometimes. So he doesn't have that many value hands. Not only that, but if I flat and shove over his river bet he can't ever think I'm bluffing and he should fold a lot of those value hands. What do you think?

Feb 2

I've realised that I need to update this immediately after a session if I want to review hands or the whole session. I just sat down this morning to post hands and I think there was a specific session I wanted to review as well, and I can barely remember what had been happening in the matches. Even if I don't post it until the morning I need to be writing these blogs immediately after a match.

Secondly, it's really hard to analyse hu hands well without having been there a lot of the time. Advice in any particular spot can be completely different for different opponents, or even the same opponent at different times. I'm still going to post hands but I'll try to include as much information about the player and what had been going on as possible. Again, this really needs to be done straight after the game.

Thirdly, Noel likes the hands in the blog rather than a link for them. I'll stick both in for now.

Fourthly, tanks a bunch to Chris for his effort on my last blog. And cheers mate (don't know what they say in Hull) to Dan for his efforts.

Ok so a few hands.

http://weaktight.com/1968052

$3/$6 No Limit Holdem • 2 Players • PokerStars

Generated by weaktight.com.

SB	$1,276
Hero	$620.50

• Pre-Flop ($9, 2 players)Hero is BB
• 

SB raises to $12, Hero calls $6

• Flop ($24, 2 players)
• 

Hero checks, SB bets $15, Hero raises to $48, SB raises to $120, $72 to Hero ($560.5)?

In this hand it's at the start of a match so luckily we don't really need reads. At this point in the match he'd opened around 80% of buttons for a min raise and c-bet most flops, and he was defending really wide but folding flops over 50%. The only significant hand we played was when I 3-bet him with AQ, he defend 98o, the board ran out K99rAx (r=rainbow) and I took the line of cbet then c/c twice (I rarely do this and it's been in consecutive days - I'll watch out for it). I think it was an ok spot to take this line given the QJ, QT, JT hands he can float.

So I think it's fairly standard to check raise the flop here. Correct me if I'm wrong. He'll fold hands with ok equity, I can get him to fold 9x by the river. When he 3-bets I'm not sure what the best line is. I think I need to 4-bet to take advantage of the times he's bluffing (and of course getting it in with this equity is fine), but is it better to shove or to 4-bet small and try and induce a spazz from something?

http://weaktight.com/1968058

$2/$4 No Limit Holdem • 2 Players • AbsolutePoker

Generated by weaktight.com.

Hero	$1,028
BB	$542

• Pre-Flop ($6, 2 players)Hero is SB
• 

Hero raises to $8, BB calls $4

• Flop ($16, 2 players)
• 

BB checks, Hero bets $12, BB calls $12

• Turn ($40, 2 players)
• 

BB checks, Hero bets $32, BB raises to $111, $79 to Hero ($976)?

There was quite a lot of history against this guy. It was on AP where I sit with 40bb to start because I don't have much money on there. He sat with the same and then every time I added some he'd make sure he matched it, until we were playing 100bb deep. So I figured he was some sort of reg (BLUFFMAGCV if you know him). There'd been a few significant pots. In a 3-bet pot he floated 87 on K63f K and shove raised my turn double barrel (f=flush draw on flop, I had AK). Then in a single raised pot I'd donked a T52f 2 board, he raised 52 on the flop, called a 3-bet, and called my turn shove (AT for me, T river, yay).

He wasn't defending amazingly wide (around 22%, 3-betting 11%), he check folded flops around 1/3 of the time, and check raised 18%. I'd seen him c/c the flop and river (turn checked) with AJ on KQ299 where a flush turned and I had 93. He'd also c/c A5 twice on QQ4r9 when a flush draw turned and caught me bluffing. That's about it as far as pots where he'd flatted go.

So here he check calls the flop and check raises the turn. He'd been pot controlly in pots where he'd raised preflop, checking back top pairs on dry boards. I don't think I can read too much into that here though. It did make me wonder whether he'd play a 9 like this that often though. He definitely can have a flush as I've seen him check call a flush draw before. So I guess his range is something like 77, 44, 9x, flushes, with 9x being less likely than the others.

What's your plan for the turn and river here (assuming river's a blank and he bets)?

http://weaktight.com/1968064

$2/$4 No Limit Holdem • 2 Players • PokerStars

Generated by weaktight.com.

Hero	$460.25
BB	$1,073.25

• Pre-Flop ($6, 2 players)Hero is SB
• 

Hero raises to $12, BB raises to $40, Hero calls $28

• Flop ($80, 2 players)
• 

BB bets $61, Hero calls $61

• Turn ($202, 2 players)
• 

BB checks, Hero checks

• River ($202, 2 players)
• 

BB bets $972, $359.25 to Hero ($359.25)?

This guy was a reg and wanted to play four tables. I stood my ground and just played two. He opened 100% despite the fact that I'd been 3-betting him a lot (prob not enough) and he'd just been folding a lot. He also c-bet close to 100%, but let me showdown really easily after that. He'd been 3-betting me a lot as well - around 22% with calling 25%. I'd been really tight so far to 3-bets and this might even have been the first I flatted.

Big hands up to this point; I checked a 3-bet pot on KxxxQ and then bet a flush turn and overbet the river and he folded. I also check raised A2hh on 933hh, he 3-bet 97 and then tank called it off when I shoved. This was the next hand of any significance.

It's pretty standard up to the river. On the river when he overshoves what do we think his range is? I don't think he plays a K like this, and I'm not even sure he plays AJ like this although he definitely can. I would think he'd double barrel a heart draw, although I suppose he could be trying for a check raise on the turn. I think he'd double barrel anything that could be a full house now given how wet the board is. The thing that worries me is that my hand looks like Jx a lot when I flat the flop and check back the turn. Call or fold?

-----

Yesterday's hands:

http://weaktight.com/1962930 - I checked, he checked it down with J9ss and won. It made me question what I thought was a pretty standard give up. I think I was right to give up though as Qx is such a huge part of his range and I don't think he folds it.

http://weaktight.com/1962928 - He called with K9. I did overbet.

http://weaktight.com/1962929 - He had AJ. I definitely prefer betting three here without an actual reliable read that he floats and gets out of line too often.

http://weaktight.com/1962927 - I don't remember what he had but it was total air.

Feb 1

I played a session yesterday against some FT guy called zmb. He has a really good ptr over a small sample (I didn't check this until after I'd played him, and would've played anyway). He sat and asked me right away if i wanted to four table. I'm not comfortable doing that so I said two, and he didn't want to do that so we compromised on three. I'm not sure I should be three tabling hu yet as I definitely found it harder to think as well and pick up and apply reads as quickly. Maybe if I'd started with two and built up to three once I had a better idea of his game it would've been better for me.

Anyway, I lost around 3.5 buy ins to him, and I definitely think he played better than me. He's a good person to analyse because he didn't seem to be doing anything particularly amazing, but he's obviously a good hu player.

I thought I'd include his stats here as it may help with hands and I also want to think about a good strategy against him. (I had to upload them and link it as for some reason I can't get it so you click on the picture and they go bigger).

Stats

So the biggest things he was doing were:

1. opening nearly 100%

2. 3-betting a hell of a lot (more than 22% early)

3. always c-betting in 3-bet pots

4. barreling in single raised pots

To counter each of these I should:

1. 3-bet and flat more. Against this guy he was folding to 3-bets a lot so I should be 3-betting trash hands like 94s and 64o, which leaves me a wider flatting range of hands like J8s, 65s, etc. As long as my fold bb to steal is under 67%, he can't open any two profitably. I definitely think it's better to put more pressure on than that though as they have trash so so often.

2. Firstly I can min raise so he wins less when I fold and his 3-bet should smaller and I can defend more. Then I can 4-bet more. It's really important to pay attention to shown down hands to get an idea of their flatting range here. This guy was flatting a lot as well as 3-betting, so chances are his 3-bet range is still pretty polarised. This means 4-bet bluffing him should work pretty well (which it did). Another adjustment here is just to tighten up my btn open so that I just have a stronger average hand when opening.

3. There are a few things I can do here. I think I should be raising a lot more flops as he has a really wide range for betting. This means I need to be doing it with top pairs as well, and so it's probably a good idea to be flatting AA/KK to his 3-bets (which I didn't as I was 4-betting so much I felt I needed to balance) in order to have a stronger raising range. On dry boards I should be flatting a lot of top pairs as he's likely to barrel given his tendencies in single raised pots. If he's barreling too often then flatting the flop in order to shove raise the turn becomes a decent option with a variety of hands.

4. This is actually the one I had the most trouble with. I started off by check raising him a lot (just the way it worked out with hands/boards), and therefore I decided to check raise quite a lot of my good top pair hands as well. This leaves my check calling range weaker and I don't know if he knew this or not but he definitely made it tough on that weaker range. Towards the end of the match I started just check calling strong top pairs in order to call down, but even that had it's drawbacks as boards would run off poorly often and still make it tough. Also, if I'm flatting a wider range with hands like 97s in often, I'm going to hit a lot of middle pairs and it's going to be hard to show them down cheaply against this guy.

It seems like 4 should be really exploitable as he's barreling so often and I know he has nothing a lot, but every time I play against a guy like this I struggle to exploit it. This is something I definitely need to work on, and incorporate more into my own game. He was also good at showing up with it when I did call. This could just be luck, but I expect he was aware of gameflow and the spots I'd likely look him up.

Ok onto the hands for today...

http://weaktight.com/1962930

There's about $400 left in stacks on the river. Do you think I can profitably bluff here? He was folding a bunch to 3-bets, so I think his range for getting to the river is QJs, KQ, AQ, 77, not sure about 55, maybe a KJs that floated. I wasn't convinced he gets there with 99 or TT, and I'm not sure what other hands I can expect to see. I think a Q finds a call a decent amount here giving I'd been 3-betting a decent amount, so I think checking is probably best?

http://weaktight.com/1962928

On the river his hand obviously looks like Ax a lot. Is this a good spot for an overbet? I guess my question is, if I'm trying to get Ax to look me up are they more likely to do so when I overbet or bet normally? It seems like Ax would call a normal bet a lot, therefore I wouldn't bluff that way, so if I wanted to bluff I'd have to overbet, therefore a good player should work this out and be more likely to call Ax to an overbet. Is this overthinking or good thinking?

http://weaktight.com/1962929

He not folded that often to my c-bets in 3-bet pots so I suspected he might be a floater. I didn't really have any good reads though. On the turn I can definitely bet again for value but I didn't think there were many hands I could get 1/2 more streets out of, compared to quite a few hands that may have floated and now want to bluff. When I check call the turn I rep 9x, A high type of hands so I think it's definitely feasible for him to barrel the river as well. What do you think of my line here?

http://weaktight.com/1962927

Here's one where he triples. I think it's a fairly trivial call when I river two pair as he has more Ax combos that he might be trying to level me with (this was fairly late on and he'll know that I'm semi-frustrated with his barreling). I'd like to know what the weakest hand you call here is. Against a lot of people, K8 should = K4 here. I don't think it does against this guy as I think he will be able to value bet AQ like this sometimes. However, he gets there with a ton of bluffs too. If I hadn't hit two pair would you have called this?

Thanks!

EDIT - Realised I should be including results from yesterday's hands:

http://weaktight.com/1956639

In this one he turned up with 73. I actually think looking this guy up was good and it really felt like his range was going to be way skewed towards bluffs.

http://weaktight.com/1956637

Here he called the turn with K6o no club. I think my play was decent here too - given he had this hand he can have a ton more that don't improve and probably fold.

Jan 30

To start with I'm just going to post hands here, but I may well begin to write down goals as well.

If I could get some thoughts on my play in the first two hands here that'd be great.

Hand 1

This guy was a weird reg type. All of his decisions were snap decisions, and it was kinda weird to play against. He'd been a little bluffy in the match so far (~150 hands), and he'd been showing a lot of his bluffs. His bluffs had kind of been in obvious spots - he'd bluff raised an A63dd board in a 3-bet pot right after showing me another bluff, so he doesn't necessarily slow down once you know he can bluff. His 3-bet had shot up in the last 40 hands or so, and he'd also started going on in chat about how terrible I was despite the fact he was slightly up in the match.

So I defend here given we're deep, he's 3-betting a lot, and I don't think he's very good. He tended to try and get to showdown with marginal value hands and didn't ever seem to think about value betting even remotely thinly. I think calling the flop and turn are standard here against this guy, and on the river I figured that he probably flats AJ and maybe AQ this deep preflop, and he probably isn't overshoving a weak Ax hand. Also he doesn't value bet thin, and also my hand is well defined as a weak made hand that will find it hard to call this overbet so I didn't think he'd do it for value.

Hand 2

This guy 3-bet quite a lot (~18% over 130 hands), but wasn't a barreler at all. I decided to raise this flop as I think he can spazz out with worse sometimes, it's really hard to play if I flat, and I'm not doing badly against anything.

On the turn we have pretty much exactly pot left. I figure he's flatting the flop with a lot of one pair hands that are now under the K and shove. I'm obviously repping a flush or set/straight pretty well too.

Hand 3

I included this as I was really pleased with it as it means I'm thinking and concentrating better than I have been doing. This guy check raised around 55% but was fast-playing all strong hands. I don't think there are any worse hands I get three streets of value from (aside from the worse Ks, but it's more often that he has a better one), and it's going to be really tough to play this to a check raise as he is doing it with K8+. I'd been checking a ton of flops back against him and he was leading turns so I figured this is a good spot to balance.

On the river I figured that his hand is face up as a bluff catcher, and I can't ever have Kx in his eyes, so overbetting is the best play as he'll think I won't overbet with anything less than trips, but I can't have trips so I'm repping a tiny tiny range of 99 and QQ. Overbetting is something that had pretty much completely disappeared from my game because I've been to lazy to think enough to do it so I was really happy here.