Mind Games

Originally posted by Harrier88
And I thought for a while you went for 1st place in such a tournament out of perfectionism.

Btw, I double-checked, and players actually do get five hole cards in Courchevel. So I assume the only difference is whether or not the first community card is dealt out preflop?

You are correct sir

I can't believe I haven't posted here in a week.
I've been working on a programming project, and reached a major milestone so I thought I'd play a few hundred hands today.

5-Card Draw
vs total unknown in the BB, but I do know that SB folds a huge amount.

The original idea was to draw 1 vs bb draw 3, then bluff post draw.
Dont have a cow, heres your converted hand
PokerStars Limit 5 Card Draw $0.10/$0.20 - 5 players

BB: $0.96
UTG: $1.02
CO: $2.38
Button: $3.90 (Hero)
SB: $5.74

Dealing Hands: ($0.15) J♦: A♣: 3♠: K♣: Q♣: (5 players)
2 folds, Hero raises to $0.20, SB folds, BB calls $0.10

First Draw: ($0.45) (2 players)
BB discards 1, Hero discards 3,
A♣: K♣: || 5♠: 9♣: J♠:
BB checks, Hero checks

BB showed 5♥: 6♥: K♥: T♠: 4♥:, high card King
Hero showed 5♠: A♣: 9♣: K♣: J♠:, high card Ace
Hero won $0.43
(Rake: $0.02)

When BB draws 1 but doesn't raise, I think that that possibility of a draw is quite high. So I drew three hoping to hit a good pair, which would likely beat any accidental pair of his draws.

Having missed, there is no point in bluffing, since if he hit anything at all I'm waxed.

Accidental wins still count
VS

Remind me not to play you at this game. When I played it, the words didn't sound like that in my head.

Hi, how are you?
Do you know this week is PL 5CD week on FT?

No, I didn't -- thanks for letting me know!
As you can see, I haven't posted here in a month.
I've not played any 5-Card Draw in all that time, but only piddled about with NL 2 and NL 4.

I have a few tasks that must be done, and when they're done, I'll get back into it.

Best of luck,
VS

Well who would believe it?
An attempt at inducing a bluff that (wait for it) ACTUALLY WORKED!

[bC$0.04 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 4 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

Hero (CO): C7.68
BTN: C1.38 (VPIP: 46.43, PFR: 14.29, 3Bet Preflop: 8.33, Hands: 29)
SB: C5.94 (VPIP: 31.78, PFR: 14.43, 3Bet Preflop: 5.00, Hands: 1,280)
BB: C1.88 (VPIP: 21.24, PFR: 15.89, 3Bet Preflop: 2.74, Hands: 388)

SB posts SB C0.02, BB posts BB C0.04

Pre Flop: (pot: C0.06) Hero has A♣: K♣:

Hero raises to C0.12, BTN calls C0.12, fold, fold

Flop: (C0.30, 2 players) Q♠: 5♣: T♣:
Hero checks, BTN checks

Turn: (C0.30, 2 players) 6♣:
Hero bets C0.04, BTN raises to C1.26 and is all-in, Hero calls C1.22

River: (C2.82, 2 players) J♣:

Hero shows A♣: K♣: (Flush, Ace High)
(Pre 50%, Flop 62%, Turn 100%)
BTN shows 2♠: 2♣: (Flush, Jack High)
(Pre 50%, Flop 38%, Turn 0%)
Hero wins C2.54

Peace,
VS

For the first time since March 31 I played a session of FL $0.10/$0.20 5-Card Draw.
I played a few hundred hands with rather decent winrate.
I played a bit more aggressively than usual, because I encountered several players who would call with a pair unimproved vs an opponent drawing one. I held back on this hand though, reasoning that he was calling with a pair better than Jacks, and hitting any two pair would beat me.

For most of April and May so far I've been wandering from room to room playing NL 4 and NL 2 and doing quite well. I know it is not recommended, but I've been playing just two tables, but working on other things as well. I find that if I'm just playing poker, I get impatient, and try to play too many hands.

Having the poker in the background means that I just look in to see what hand I have, and I fold all but the ones with decent playability.

As far as possible, I try to play to exploit my opponents, which means I need to be somewhat exploitable myself. So far this is working well.

Running good helps too.

I came second in a 67-player tournament, for $12 or so which made me realize that I really should focus on my MTT skills. The potential reward is so much higher.

All the best,
VS

Nicely done my friend.

Nice to hear from you at last. GL on every game and hand.

I might have mentioned that I've been playing on a local Canadian site.

Each day at 13:00 they have a $25 freeroll with only 5 places paid.

I'm going to guess that the field is fairly soft, since I'm an MTT fish and I final tabled two days in a row. I was even chip leader for a while today, finishing 4th.

There was one hand that I think I played rather badly OTF and OTT, leaving my with a river decision I didn't like.

What do you think?
VS

I entered another of the freerolls today.
500 entrants more-or-less.

I held first place for quite a while then was knocked down by this hand:
The overlimp pre was because in this room limps from EP are almost always Ax, Kx (x < T) or PP.
By limping, I can exit when an A or K appears OTF.
I did the shove to get them to call -- and they did! ♠_cry: (be careful what you wish for!

C$500/C$1000 NL - Holdem - 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

Hero (MP): 41,579
MP+1: 15,230 (VPIP: 42.11, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 19)
MP+2: 38,947 (VPIP: 20.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 15)
CO: 19,220 (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 2)
BTN: 1,410 (VPIP: 19.44, PFR: 11.43, 3Bet Preflop: 7.69, Hands: 36)
SB: 15,133 (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: -, Hands: 3)
BB: 30,395 (VPIP: 23.08, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 13)
UTG: 36,629 (VPIP: 16.67, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 18)
UTG+1: 24,151 (VPIP: 58.33, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 36)

9 players post ante of 100, SB posts SB 500, BB posts BB 1,000

Pre Flop: (pot: 2,400) Hero has T♣: T♦:

UTG raises to 2,000, UTG+1 calls 2,000, Hero calls 2,000, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold

Flop: (8,400, 3 players) A♥: Q♣: T♠:
UTG bets 3,000, UTG+1 calls 3,000, Hero raises to 39,479 and is all-in, UTG calls 31,529 and is all-in, UTG+1 calls 19,051 and is all-in

Turn: (99,509, 3 players) 9♣:

River: (99,509, 3 players) 3♠:

That is one tough hand.
Your pre-flop call is good. If you re-rise preflop and then get 4 bet you would have to fold, so I like your call.
On the one hand it looks like a cooler but I think you misplayed the flop.
With the possibility of a straight on board I would only call the flop bet and see what the turn brings. You have enough chips that you do not have to fire here IMO.
The turn is as ugly as the flop.
I'm not sure I could get away from your hand either but with that scary board you really should slow down and play your position.

Originally posted by TheMarxBros3
That is one tough hand.
Your pre-flop call is good. If you re-rise preflop and then get 4 bet you would have to fold, so I like your call.
On the one hand it looks like a cooler but I think you misplayed the flop.
With the possibility of a straight on board I would only call the flop bet and see what the turn brings. You have enough chips that you do not have to fire here IMO.
The turn is as ugly as the flop.
I'm not sure I could get away from your hand either but with that scary board you really should slow down and play your position.

Hi, TheMarxBros3,
Thanks for the detailed review. I was banking too much on the tendencies of the players, who used their reputation to trap me quite neatly.

Tonight I played my first session of 5-Card Draw longer than an hour since the end of march.
For the first couple of hundred hands I just could not get traction, and was down over 10 BB.
Then in the last 75 or so hands it all turned around. The strange thing is that just before the upswing, the table had dropped to 3-handed. I was going to quit, but the two left were both playing WAY too many hands, and all I needed to make money from them was a few good hands. So I stuck around and it paid off.

Cheers,
VS

NLHE
I do believe that I have identified a mental leak.

The first clue was the hand I posted a couple of days ago

In that hand, I shoved over two limpers. So what is the leak?

I suppose you could add to that, Bad players can sometimes get good hands.

The mental leak is this:
I assume that if a player plays poorly frequently, he will play badly always.

What really happened is that by limping such a wide range so often, villain set me up perfectly to be trapped.

So today, I decided to cool my jets a bit, and let the hands develop, unless I needed to price out likely draws.

Coincidentally, my hole cards are once again pocket Tens.

This hand is not instructive at all, but it was more fun than a barrel of monkeys...
My plan was to x/c any flop bet, and bet small on any turn. BTN thankfully derailed those plans.

Great weekends to all!
VS

NLHE
I was busy most of the day with life stuff, but I took time to rail a couple of ex-mods playing Sunday tournaments.

Several decent cashes.
Must be nice!

I had a few minutes before supper, so I opened up a table of NL 2 Rush on Full Tilt.
I didn't think it would be much good, since there were only 30 - 40 players on at the time, which usually means reg-fest.

As it turns out, this lot was in a fold-to-steal mood, and I picked up two buy-ins in less than 200 hands.

Most of it came from this hand.

5-Card Draw
Two hands today.
The first is nothing short of a miracle:
https://forums.pokerstrategy.com/forum/thread.php?postid=2023532#post2023532

The second could be titled, "The battle of the Overplayers"
This is FL $0.50/$1 5-Card Draw. My purpose in the pre-draw 3Bet bluff was to hopefully get caught cheaply so I could be seen to 3Bet bluff flush draw.
Assuming UTG+1 actually held trip Aces pre-draw (v likely) the 4Bet on his part was standard, and now I have pot odds to call it.

Post-draw, I raise for value, since if villain is drawing two, I can expect to get called by most trips.
I do this planning to just call if raised again. Full Houses are the bane of my existence, but I'm not folding a flush here.
As it turns out, villain was overplaying trips, but to be fair, I've seen trip Qs and Ks played the same way at FL $0.50/$1.

PokerStars is having "Stud and Draw Week" and I've never before seen such a level of activity on the 5-Card Draw tables.
I've played 6200 hands since the 25th -- and that's with taking yesterday off!

I've done superbly well at the FL $0.10/$0.20 and FL $0.25/$0.50, but I got waxed twice at FL $0.50/$1 -- the hand above was a help, but still...
I reviewed my play, and the basic problem is that when I get a decent hand, someone at the table gets a decenter one.

I'll have my turn again...

Until then, best of luck to all,
VS

1st thing is don't have your turn again have your river...duh not hard get a grip bro!

2nd (seriously), is it too hard to move up? BR-wise etc? You're too good for this.

3rd: if you miss do you bluff post or would that be retard?

Learning is all. I wouldn't.

Hi, gadget!
It's good to see you again.
Skype me Saturday evening your time if you get a chance...

Originally posted by gadget51
1st thing is don't have your turn again have your river...duh not hard get a grip bro!
Not quite sure I understand.

2nd (seriously), is it too hard to move up? BR-wise etc? You're too good for this.
While I would live to agree with you, I tried FL $0.50/$1 this week and got my a$$ handed to me. Twice.
The third time I broke even.
I get the feeling that these guys are on a level so far above me, all I can see are their behinds.
And they ain't pretty

3rd: if you miss do you bluff post or would that be retard?
Learning is all. I wouldn't.
I bluff some, and some I just check.
If you check/fold it is obv you were bluffing, and much cheaper than bet/fold or betting and getting called
The problem is that if they NEVER see you bluff, all you ever get when you open-raise are the blinds -- unless they have you beat.
When you raise, they need to think that they have a chance at winning, or they don't call.

5-Card Draw
The PokerStars Draw & Stud week continues.
What a bizarre game 5-Card Draw has turned out to be!

There is a leaderboard based on # of hands won.
The #1 person on that board has won 5417 hands at last count since the 25th.
I'm guess that she has been dealt 5 times that, and entered about 1/5 of those, judging by her VPIP

That is about 5000 hands per day.

The problem with this structure is that people are entering any and every pot, and raising with bizarre stuff hoping to get everyone to fold so that they can chalk up a win.
The #2 guy on the leaderboard admitted in chat, "I don't care if I lose 50 or a hundred bux playing, if I get the $375 for second"

So I was raising my decent hands over these lunatics, and wouldn't you know it, they kept on hitting.
Even one of our friendly neighbourhood mods took a couple of big pots off me. ♠_cry:
<sigh>

I played from 08:30 til 19:20 today -- with several breaks -- and got in 4064 hands, and ended up down 23 Big Bets. Big Deal.
After supper, I put in another 45 minutes, 307 hands and was up 45 Big Bets. Bigger Deal.

As it stands, I'm #71 on the leaderboard, and I'll be back at it tomorrow.

Peace,
VS

5-Card Draw Marathon
I made it to 56th spot on the leaderboard today, showing a slight profit.

I'm stunned at the number of times I've been outdrawn, but I must have had my share, since I ended the day slightly up.
I'm having trouble figuring out where the $ are going, because I won at showdown 57% of the time, and of the hands I played at all, I won over half of them w/o showdown.

Some investigation is needed -- probably will find that my database query is pooched.

But losing a few big pots will cost more dollars that a lot of little ones can make back.

Also, the leaderboard is not counting hands won, but raked hands won.

I'm doing my best to not focus on the leaderboard, rather I'm trying to focus on making money.

Have a good weekend all!
VS

ps: I did not win the lottery last night. What's up with that? <sigh>

5-Card Draw Marathon

The craziness that Stud and Draw Week came to an end at 06:00 UTC yesterday.
At 05:00 UTC I had 1474 hands won, and I was in 51st place, needing to advance one place for an additional $10 in prize money.

I needed to overtake the person ahead of me by only 10 hands. He was not playing 5-Card Draw, but he may have been playing 2-7 triple draw or 2-7 single draw.

Since only RAKED hands counted, I had to ensure I saw the draw with any monster, regardless of how little money I won, so I was doing bizarre things like limping trips and pat hands, and trying to get some bets in post draw.

Hilariously backfired a couple of times. I limped Kings up in SB, and BB drew 4 and hit trip Aces. So it goes.

I lost $6.00 in the last hour, but made 49th (woot!) for $4.00 net.
At the end, I had 1530 hands won, so won over 50 hands in the last hour alone.

In the course of the week, I played 20K hands in 46 hours, over the course of 3.5 days.
The winner won over 8000 hands. I have no clue how many hands she was dealt.

What follows is the post-promo interview I didn't do with Kara Scott...
Kara Scott   Well, Vorpal, did you learn anything from this?
Vorpal  Why, yes, Kara -- thank you for asking. I learned that far, far fewer people bluff post draw than I ever imagined.
Kara Scott How on earth did you arrive at that conclusion?
Vorpal Errr, <looks foolish> by calling way too many post-draw lead off bets when I was ahead of the odds. Example: I hold low trips pre-draw vs a player drawing 3. He leads. It is 7:1 against him having trips, 5:1 against him having two pair (which would be nice) and nearly 100:1 against him having a full house. He has the trips. Mind you, he probably could have got even more with a check/raise, but hey that's poker.
Kara Scott Did you learn anything else about playing poker, and 5-Card Draw in particular?
Vorpal Yes I did. I had always been a strictly by-the-odds player, only entering pots when the odds were in my favour. If you occasionally take the short end of the odds, you can win in any of three ways.
 You can hit your draw.
 You can pretend you did
 You can get paid off with premium hands more when they just know you're bluffing, but you ain't ♠_biggrin:
Another thing that finally dawned on me is that limp/call has a place in a 5-Card Draw pre-draw game. I've often complained that when I raise a decent hand, I get a chorus of folds. Having a limping range allows for a wider raising range as well. I still have to work out the details.
Kara Scott So much for poker -- did you learn anything about yourself in all of this.
Vorpal I did, yeah. Until this week, I had a terrible time playing long hours, and more than two tables of 5-Card Draw. It seemed that the longer I played, the more likely I was to have a losing session. This week, I played over 12 hours a day (with breaks of course) and up to 6 tables, including up to 2 zoom. Over the 20K hands I ended up ahead -- not by much -- but decently, and had no trouble keeping up. No notes, mind you, but something had to give.
Kara Scott Thanks for taking this time to talk to us, today, Vorpal -- do you have any thoughts before we close?
Vorpal Thanks Kara, it's been great. More than anything else, the marathon was FUN. Over 7000 people took part, judging by the number of entrants into the challenge flipaments. I hope a lot of them will recognize how good a game 5-Card Draw really is, and stick around to play more.
Kara Scott Good night, Vorpal
Vorpal Good night

Well there you have it.
The prize money ($25) still has not landed in my account, so there be no rubbing of it anywhere, but it will arrive eventually...

Best of luck,
VS