Week 24

So why have there been no updates since last sunday a week ago? For the same reason people are silent in non-poker related events: I had nothing to talk about.

I only managed to put in around 6k hands, running at a measly 2.16ptBB/100. Not really something I can brag about on my blog.

One thing I've been wondering about is how I approach my game. I keep making some very high variance plays, probably due to the Fancy Play Syndrome, and a discussion on the Cardrunners forums made me realize the errors of my ways: I should keep the fancy plays for higher limits, bluff much less, and just grind my way up from the toe-itch limits so I can eventually reach the nose-bleed limits.

The hand in question was this one:



Flop: I made a standard cbet here and got called. One thing was certain when facing this player, which is that he does not have two pair here nor TPTK. Turn: I do not want to two-barrel since I expect to get called by his whole range here. So I decide to check, to either get a free card, or to CR him off his marginal hand. The nice thing about CR'ing here is that even if he shoves, I get the correct odds to call. BUT...the equity of my hand would also have allowed me to just check-call here. There was absolutely no need to CR here vs a fish since the pot odds I received were already great, and if I could earn a few more bucks on the river, check-calling here would already have been very +EV, without the variance.

That does not mean I will stop bluffing completely though, nor 3-betting light, though 4-betting light is something I only do now vs people who are really asking for it. I am trying to reduce my light 3-betting frequency when out of position, but when I do so, I do with hands that will make me look like a spewmonkey:



I obviously did not make a value bet on this river even while it's a standard spot to do so, but I really wanted to show down 72o here. Villain will probably give me MUCH less respect when 3-betting vs him when I do so occasionally with total junk, compared to doing so with 56s/33 etc.

Semi-bluffing stays insanely profitable though, and it will stay an important part of my game, be it a check-raise with an underpair (semi-bluffing to 2 outs) on dry boards OOP, but people give me no credit anyways when I have relatively loose stats at a table. If people play so bad at NL100, I got no need to really go fancy, since they'll pay off anyways as long as I show I occasionally make some moves (for much smaller pots):





The difference with this hand compared to the earlier 67s hand is that this is a semi-bluff where I can fold to a shove, AND lack the implied odds since I do not know whether hitting two pair is good here.