Still at Deaths Door...

I had intended on going back to work today but after waking up sweating,with the bed soaking, ( dreams of Amatays woman,Kathy Liebert maybe?!) and after endless spluttering with a beast of a cough,I decided man flu had got the better of me and phoned in sick.

I've been sick all weekend and as a result haven't played too much poker.The games I have played have gone reasonably well and I'm quite pleased with the start I've made to the month.After my 5 in a row streak at Party,I was reluctant to play there as my warped logic said the chances of winning the 6th were unlikely.I did manage to come back from a 350 shortstack when my 84sooooted cracked Aces, but it wasn't to be.I did at least manage 2nd in the only other game I've played there since Thursday.

I'm finding the HUD on Pokertracker 3 really helps a ton with my decision making.In sngs it's quite possible to get an idea of how a villain is playing from quite a small sample size.For example,even with only 10 hands played,if the villain has played most of the them it's almost certain he's a donkey.

On one occasion a loose ( 46% vpip /26% PFR**) button player made a 3 bb raise when folded to him.I had 1010 in the small blind,shoved all in and he folded.Obviously anyone opening from the button when folded to them has to be on a wider range, but the HUD stats which showed the villain had played nearly half of his hands and raised a large % of them,meant I was pretty sure I was ahead.He folded that time although I would have been glad if he'd called with a weaker hand.

The hand below is a spot where 99/100 I raise and would be happy to get it in preflop.On this occasion I had over 100 hands on Player 3 ( initial raiser),it's very early on and he raises over a limper from early position.He had put money in the pot voluntarily 6% of the time over those 100 hands and raised 6% preflop too.He was playing many tables and his raise just screamed KK/AA/Monster hand to me.The result of course doesn't matter....grrrrrrrrrrrrr!



Here's one that's certainly not standard and may even have been a poor shove by me.Hmm for some reason the hand replayer as used above didn't split the pot or allocate the sidepot.Here's a link to the hand to make it easier to view.I've provided the raw hand history for anyone reading at work or without access to pokerhand.org.

***** Hand History for Game 7697101360 *****
NL Texas Hold'em $22 USD Buy-in Trny: 43831824 Level: 6 Blinds(300/600) - Sunday, January 11, 20:12:11 ET 2009
Table Speed #1330290 (Real Money)
Seat 5 is the button
Total number of players : 6
Seat 6: Hero ( 1,640 )
Seat 9: KaraDani ( 2,495 )
Seat 8: PartyLovesMe ( 7,500 )
Seat 5: gharibo89 ( 6,835 )
Seat 3: golf147111 ( 230 )
Seat 7: Tight Multi-tabler ( 1,300 )
Trny: 43831824 Level: 6
Blinds(300/600)
** Dealing down cards **
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Hero [ 5h Jc ]
PartyLovesMe folds
KaraDani folds
golf147111 is all-In [230]
gharibo89 folds
Hero is all-In [1,340]
Tight Multi-tabler folds
** Dealing Flop ** [ Kd, Ks, Ah ]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 2d ]
** Dealing River ** [ Qh ]
Hero shows [ 5h, Jc ]a pair of Kings.
golf147111 shows [ 8c, Jd ]a pair of Kings.
Hero wins 1,780 chips from the side pot 1 with a pair of Kings.
golf147111 wins 345 chips from the main pot with a pair of Kings.
Hero wins 345 chips from the main pot with a pair of Kings.


In this hand I'm in the small blind with 1640 chips.( 1340 after paying the 300 small blind).The blinds have reached 300/600 and there are still 6 of us left,including a very shortstack who had just lost the last hand on a suckout.The shorty stuck in his last 230 chips preflop,the bigstack button folded and the action was on me with J5.Now the big blind was the same tighty ( 6% vpip/6%pfr)multi-tabler I laid down AK to in the hand above.He had not played a hand at all in this game and was probably also aware of my tight stats.I reckoned there was a good chance he would fold leaving me headsup in the hand against the shorty who I guessed would be shoving whatever hand he had been dealt.The pot was so big ( and I was on just over 2bb) that I felt it was a reasonable move at the time.

We split the pot,I gained about 700 chips and went on to come 2nd.Good move or lucky donkery?Hmmmmm!

Ok,time to go and see if I can force myself to eat anything.It's not easy having man flu....( not that I make a fuss!)