Mind Games

Regarding how to play middle pairs at 25nl, I think it is much more important to consider the opponent rather than the cards.

Against an unknown both flatting and 3betting have merits. But what is the purpose of the bet? Do you want a Call or a Fold?

More info on villain makes it easier.

vs wide ranges and high Ft3B I'd raise smaller pairs as I likely have the best hand and my hand doesn't play so well post flop. JJ plays okay post flop and I have position so flatting makes more sense.

Against wide ranges and low Ft3B flatting small pairs makes more sense as I have little fold equity, so I set mine. But 3betting JJ makes more sense because he will call with worse.

It's also useful to see how aggro they are post. The more passive they are the easier it is to get 99 to a cheap showdown.

If they're playing reg/abc poker then mixing it up a little depending on table dynamics and any history is a good idea i.e. don't 3bet 99 if you've already 3bet a ton of hands on this table, but if you've been card dead then 3betting with 99 is a good metagame play.

77-JJ are all hands that can be 3bet for value, but it is situation specific. I'd avoid having any fixed strategy with these cards.
I've followed Pleno's advice and put the PFR by position on my HUD and find it very useful for making decisions with middle pairs.

First of all, I have determined that out of all possible 5-card combinations out of a 52-card deck, there are only 7,462 discrete hands.

Surprisingly many of them I have never been dealt.
Not-so-surprisingly, these include most of the straight flushes, quads etc.

In 50,000 hands, for example, I should expect to get each discrete 1-Pair hand 8 times.
I have been dealt a pair of 8s with K,7,5 16 times
I have NEVER been dealt a pair of 8s with K,7,3

Presumably, this means that the universe is in balance.
OTOH, it's rigged.

Only one other discrete 1-pair hand is missing.

Now for the exploding brain part.

I have a reference:
http://www.nichepoker.net/draw-poker/five-card-odds/
That says the odds of getting 2 pair when holding 1 pair and drawing 3 are 5.3:1. Whenever I calculate it, I get 5.2:1
[Edit: Oh, never mind. In the process of trying to describe the problem I discovered my mistake]
Rubber ducky debugging at its finest

After a day of futzing about with math, I have come to the following conclusions:

♠  It is necessary to bluff.
♠  It is necessary so that when you DO have a winning hand, you get paid.
♠  When you bluff, you must bluff with a hand that is very close to your real calling/raising range, so that when you DO get called, you don't look like a Canucklehead.
♠  If you bluff too often you ARE a Canucklehead
♠  You must periodically call villain's bluffs -- again, not too often.
Problem: How often is too often.

In 5Card Draw where there is little fold equity, it is crucial that you recognize that if anyone after you enters the pot, he has the same chance to improve that you do. If there is more than one in the pot, the odds that EITHER ONE of them improves goes up REAL FAST as the number of people in the pot increases.

Time for some booze.

Not a lot to report today.

I was playing some 5-Card Draw, and jb dropped by to give me a lesson in bluffing, so I paid him the required 3BB fee.

After he left (cause and effect maybe) I hit a run of good cards on two tables. and made some money for a change.

I've now gone over all the most common scenarios that fit the pattern:
If I hold <hand> and draw <# of cards> what are the odds of improving to <new hand>

I discovered one thing of importance:
low 2pair hands are worse holdings than high pairs.
Reason:
A player holding a high pair, faces only 2.65:1 odds of improving to trips or 2-pair
A player holding two low pairs faces 10.75:1 odds of hitting the FH.
The implication is that if I raise UTG w/ AA and get 3Bet, I have the odds to call, even assuming I'm beaten by two-pair hands at this point.
Those same two pair hands I'm facing crush my low two-pair, and momma, I aint neva gettin' nuttin' betta
Yeah, well, 1 in 12 doesn't cut it.

Considering the # of times villain draws 1 and hits boat against me, I wonder about that...

So the number of times I raised in UTG or MP w/ two small pairs, then called the 3Bet is sickening.

Remember me whinging a while back about losing FH / FH where hold 2-pair and hit, so does villain and I lose? Hmmm.....

Now, the question is: What to do about it?

Peace,
--VS

I do not do well against very loose players.

I do better playing short sessions that long ones.

I'm not sure what the cause is in either case -- let alone what the cure might be.

For the fun of it, I played a 45-man Sit 'n' Go on Stars.

Made the final table -- it took an hour and 25 minutes to get there.
I was in 6th place and bust in two hands.
AK vs AJ vs TT -- OK, makes sense.
With only 4 BB left, I shoved AT & got called by BB with 62 offset.
flop was A2x and river was a 6.
I enjoyed the game more-or-less, but if I want to lose two bits, I can do it in my first hand of NL 25, then go read a book.

In other news, I flopped a straight vs AA playing NL4, got my stack in, and watched as the turn and river matched my hole cards

My only intention here was set mining, since I wasn't paying attention to stack sizes.

IPoker, $0.02/$0.04 No Limit Hold'em Cash, 6 Players

BTN: $2.18 (54.5 bb)
SB: $11.12 (278 bb)
Hero (BB): $5.29 (132.3 bb)
UTG: $5.48 (137 bb)
MP: $8.13 (203.3 bb)
CO: $5.15 (128.8 bb)

Preflop: Hero is BB with 2:d 2:s
3 folds, BTN raises to $0.12, SB folds, Hero calls $0.08

Flop: ($0.26) K:h 3:d 5:d (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN checks

Turn: ($0.26) J:s (2 players)
Hero bets $0.13, BTN calls $0.13

River: ($0.52) T:d (2 players)
Hero bets $0.52, BTN folds

He didn't seem to want the pot much, so I figured I might as well have it.

Originally posted by VorpalF2F

My only intention here was set mining, since I wasn't paying attention to stack sizes.

IPoker, $0.02/$0.04 No Limit Hold'em Cash, 6 Players

BTN: $2.18 (54.5 bb)
SB: $11.12 (278 bb)
Hero (BB): $5.29 (132.3 bb)
UTG: $5.48 (137 bb)
MP: $8.13 (203.3 bb)
CO: $5.15 (128.8 bb)

Preflop: Hero is BB with 2:d 2:s
3 folds, BTN raises to $0.12, SB folds, Hero calls $0.08

Flop: ($0.26) K:h 3:d 5:d (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN checks

Turn: ($0.26) J:s (2 players)
Hero bets $0.13, BTN calls $0.13

River: ($0.52) T:d (2 players)
Hero bets $0.52, BTN folds

He didn't seem to want the pot much, so I figured I might as well have it.

Set mining against someone with a weak range (he's BU, he's not going to make a good hand very often and pay off your set) and a small stack who raises to 3x is not a good idea imo. I'd 3bet or fold.

Originally posted by jbpatzer
Set mining against someone with a weak range (he's BU, he's not going to make a good hand very often and pay off your set) and a small stack who raises to 3x is not a good idea imo. I'd 3bet or fold.

Yeah, if I had been paying attention, I would have 3Bet since he doesn't have enough money to be mining -- as a geologist, I should know these things.

As for raising 3x -- at this level that is what everyone else does -- why be any different?

Crawling out of the 5-Card Draw hole, slowly but Shirley.

I was all fired up from Patrick's coaching today, and carefully selected several places to "take the pot away" from the villains.

Oh, boy, can I pick 'em.

Almost all of them got the required folds, Yay Me! Yay Red Line!

At least 5 times, though I "bluffed" exactly what villain held.
Sorry, blue line, better luck next time.

Admittedly it is WAY more fun playing this way, but I need to fold in a few spots where I figured I was the one being Pleno'd (I wasn't -- they had it).

Overall down about 2.5 BI, but learning a lot.

The day I sit down with a table full of Patrick's is the day poker will be reborn

The day I sit down at a table full of players who think they're pleno1 will be the day my br is reborn.

Originally posted by gadget51
The day I sit down at a table full of players who think they're pleno1 will be the day my br is reborn.

That would be fun to watch.

We had my youngest granddaughter visiting Vorpal Manor so her Mom could enjoy a romantic evening with her mate.

She was quiet, polite, considerate and enjoyable.

I kept checking to see that we had the right kid.

In the process we watched "How to Train Your Dragon".
A rather surreal cartoon about a Village of Vikings all with Scottish accents that is at war with a few 1000 dragons.

It is liberally sprinkled with adult humour -- enough to make it funny anyway -- but overall it is "cute".

It took me 50 years to learn accurately classify things as "cute", but I can do it now. I'm such a baws.

Women have this ability hard-wired in to their operating systems, apparently.

For the men:
Bunny rabbits that eat most of the vegetables out of your garden, and ruin the rest are "cute".
Babies that spit up on your necktie are also "cute".

Homework:
From those two examples, create a general definition of what constitutes cuteness. Hint: It has nothing to do with destructiveness.

Some time back I posed the question, "Do you believe in variance?"

I have pretty much always been convinced that long downswings were more-or-less bad play, with some suckouts in the mix so you could feel it was just luck.

I'm beginning to believe.

I was bored out of my mind (not a long trip at the best of times) and was playing some NL 2 cap. It plays like play money table, only without all the zeros.

It basically works like this:
If you know you're ahead, you raise/shove
I lost 15 caps -- $9.00 before suddenly I was the one whose AA held, whose two pair cracked the aces and so on. I SWEAR I didn't change my play at all.

In 5-Card Draw I have won back $15.00 of the 23 I lost two weeks ago.
Here, though I HAVE changed my play a bit.
I have added a few more bluffs to certain spots -- not ranges of hands, but situations.
For example, my new one for tonight was to 3Bet from the BB vs an SB raise, and draw something different than the SB, then CBet

I do it until I have to fold or show, then I don't. And ofc I don't do it every hand.
These are total air bluffs -- not flush draw etc.

I've also added another thing I'm not so sure about:
In the BB it is quite often you get proper odds to call with high pairs.
If you hit trips or even Aces or Kings up, you likely take the pot.
When you're getting 5:1 to call, and the odds against improving are only 2.5:1 it seems sensible.

So far this is working too. The only downside is when you're already beat by a pat hand.

Not sure about snowing yet.
I've called a few suspicious pat hands and caught people bluffing, but I'm not yet doing it myself. I've also called a few legit pat hands and lost, but for the most part I fold.

I went w/ Mrs Vorpal for dinner tonight to a surprisingly wonderful Thai restaurant here.
We spoke to this wee little bit of a girl cleaning tables and told her how much we loved the place.
It turns out she is the owner, and gives classes in Thai cooking.
We signed up.

All the best -- we're off to the States tomorrow to kill a day.
--VS

I had a shot at snowing this morning.

Not quite the way I intended, since when I 3Bet I thought I had 5s full of 3s

Once I realized my mistake, I figured it was the only way out.
A pack of feral cows chewed their cuds for .0043 seconds to convert this hand
PokerStars Limit 5 Card Draw $0.25/$0.50 - 6 players

UTG+1: $6.19
CO: $9.87 (Hero)
Button: $14.70
SB: $2.02
BB: $26.45
UTG: $11.29

Dealing Hands: ($0.35) 3♥ 5♣ 3♦ 5♥ 6♥ (6 players)
UTG raises to $0.50, UTG+1 folds, Hero raises to $0.75, Button folds, SB calls $0.65, 2 folds

First Draw: ($2.25) (2 players)
SB discards 2, Hero stands,
3♥ 5♣ 3♦ 5♥ 6♥
SB checks, Hero bets $0.50, SB folds

Hero collected $2.15

(Rake: $0.10)

I'm in the ideal spot for this -- CO or BTN -- since it is possible to get folds from later positions.

Anyway, it worked, but I think that it doesn't make sense to do this more than once in a hundred hands, since only 0.7% of all hands are pat hands.

So if you snow once in a hundred hands, and get a real pat hand about once in a hundred, you might just fly under the radar.

Mind you, occasionally the snow job is going to come up against a real pat hand -- such is poker. That should be sufficiently rare, though that it is still profitable. The other problem is that SB and BB have correct odds to call w/ OESDs and FDs, and will hit sufficiently often to be annoying.

I suppose that in some cases your pat hand will be challenged, but on this limit I have only been challenged once or twice, but each time I was holding the goods.

Have a good weekend,
--VS

As much fun as it is to win with a planned and executed bluff

I've decided it's way more fun to suck out:

I deliberately played a long (500 H) session because I had noticed a tendency to win early then lose over the long haul.

I had countered this by playing short sessions -- ie "quit while you're ahead"

I wanted to see if I could sustain a good win rate for a full 500 hands.
I did not -- I won early, then lost a while, then picked back up at the end.

I have no idea what (if anything) this means...

Have a great week.
--VS

I had two absolutely fantastic sessions of 5-Card draw tonight.

Unfortunately, the 2nd session was a NL 2-7 single draw freeroll

Overall, I did well, I think, coming in 287th of 2217 original entrants.
I busted out on this hand:
Cows play poker with cow chips
PokerStars No Limit Single Draw t100/t200 ante t50 - 7 players

CO: t8,565
Button: t27,350
SB: t12,060
BB: t10,500 (Hero)
UTG: t11,140
UTG+1: t35,090
HJ: t59,915

Dealing Hands: (t650) 8♣ 3♥ J♣ 6♥ 4♠ (7 players)
UTG raises to t400, 2 folds, CO calls t400, Button folds, SB calls t300, Hero calls t200

First Draw: (t1,950) (4 players)
SB discards 2, Hero discards 1, UTG stands, CO discards 2,
8♣ 3♥ 6♥ 4♠ || 5♥
SB checks, Hero bets t600, UTG raises to t4000, 2 folds, Hero raises to t10050 and is all-in, UTG calls t6050

Hero showed 8♣ 3♥ 5♥ 6♥ 4♠, Lo: 8,6,5,4,3
UTG showed 6♣ 3♠ 5♠ 7♠ 2♣, Lo: 7,6,5,3,2
UTG won t22050

Which I thought was a reasonable risk.
Until then I had entered relatively few pots, and then only with good to v good hands, and bet them strongly.

I should have been prepared, really. UTG rarely raised, but he had bluffed all-in at least twice AD previously, both of which I called and won.

In 5-Card Draw, yesterday saw my biggest win to date.
I only noticed during review today.

This converter is going to be a cash cow...
PokerStars Limit 5 Card Draw $0.25/$0.50 - 6 players

UTG+1: $1.81
CO: $7.70
Button: $2.41
SB: $10.70
BB: $10.00 (Hero)
UTG: $21.13

Dealing Hands: ($0.35) T♥ A♠ A♣ 4♣ A♥ (6 players)
UTG calls $0.25, 2 folds, Button raises to $0.50, SB calls $0.40, Hero raises to $0.75, UTG calls $0.50, Button calls $0.25, SB calls $0.25

First Draw: ($3.00) (4 players)
SB discards 3, Hero discards 1, UTG discards 3, Button discards 3,
A♠ A♣ 4♣ A♥ || 4♠
SB checks, Hero bets $0.50, UTG folds, Button calls $0.50, SB calls $0.50

Button mucked
SB mucked
Hero showed 4♠ A♠ A♣ 4♣ A♥, a full house, Aces full of Fours
Hero won $4.34
(Rake: $0.16)

once a cow has a taste for violence, it reverts. it becomes feral. <== this explains a lot!
PokerStars Limit 5 Card Draw $0.25/$0.50 - 6 players

UTG: $10.63
UTG+1: $9.65
CO: $1.13
Button: $12.71 (Hero)
SB: $1.65
BB: $11.34

Dealing Hands: ($0.35) 6♥ 6♠ 9♦ 6♦ A♥ (6 players)
UTG folds, UTG+1 raises to $0.50, CO folds, Hero raises to $0.75, 2 folds, UTG+1 calls $0.25

First Draw: ($1.85) (2 players)
UTG+1 discards 1, Hero discards 1,
6♥ 6♠ 9♦ 6♦ || 6♣
UTG+1 checks, Hero bets $0.50, UTG+1 raises to $1, Hero raises to $1.50, UTG+1 raises to $2, Hero calls $0.50

UTG+1 showed J♥ A♠ A♣ A♦ J♠, a full house, Aces full of Jacks
Hero showed 6♥ 6♠ 9♦ 6♦ 6♣, four of a kind, Sixes
Hero won $5.69
(Rake: $0.16)

I love quads.
Next to straight flushes, they're my favourite hands.

This is a tough spot for villain.
I hate calling 3Bets holding two pair, because it is so rare you improve, and when 3Bet you are almost always behind.
If he is holding AAAJ or even AAJJ though he is ahead often enough to warrant a call.

I now have over 5K hands at $0.25/$0.50 with a winrate of 0.68 BB/100
This doesn't sound like much maybe, but in the last 2K hands it has been 2.25 -- which for me is huge.

[?] sustainable

Back-to-back losing 5CD sessions today -- but first two losses in a week.

They seemed big at first, but only totalled 10BB altogether.

I kept it sane by recognizing when to fold -- something I didn't do so well before.

I also hit quads vs a full house, which held up the bottom end.

I also had a bit of a fish-fry for a time.
Dude was playing 50/30 and drawing 2 every time. Lot's of fun...

I've been playing NL 10 when bored.
I haven't been keen to play NL 25 for a while -- I need to be alert and energetic for that, and just haven't been really.

Have a good weekend all.

I enterred a $1.10 No-Limit 5CD tournament this afternoon on a whim.

I noticed it just before late reg closed, so I enterred with about 60% average stack.

I was playing the odds mostly, and was getting a hand or two now and again to keep me in it.

I was ITM in about 51st out of 66 paid, but from then on was on the verge of busto for a long time.

This hand kept me in it:

This converter is going to be a cash cow...
PokerStars No Limit 5 Card Draw ($1.00+$0.10) t1250/t2500 ante t625 - 6 players

CO: t42,557
Button: t65,240
SB: t122,262
BB: t8,523 (Hero)
UTG: t51,856
UTG+1: t32,278

Dealing Hands: (t7,500) 4♠ K♠ 7♠ 5♦ 2♠ (6 players)
2 folds, CO raises to t5000, Button calls t5000, SB folds, Hero raises to t7898 and is all-in, CO raises to t41932 and is all-in, Button folds

First Draw: (t25,796) (2 players)
Hero discards 1, CO discards 3

CO showed A♣ A♠ 4♦ 6♣ Q♠, a pair of Aces
Hero showed 4♠ K♠ 7♠ 3♠ 2♠, a flush, King high
Hero won t25796

With a raise and a call, plus blinds and antes, I need to put in only 2500 chips to win 17500. I have less than 4BB anyway, so I shoved the rest.

I finished 9th out of 515 for $10.81

Very nice.