Rollin' VIP (WHAAAT!)
^^^ The only funny superbowl commerical this year, in my opinion :-(
Well I'd like to report that my steady incline has continued but unfortunately I hit my first downswing in a while tonight. I had been cruising along so far this month up around $5700 or so before Sunday began, however a night filled with a littany of beats, coolers, and horribly failed bluffs nipped that in the bud dropping my current month to only about +$800 after around 7300 hands. Boooo.
I expected a downswing to come soon but it still sucks that it had to happen already. I'm a bit behind on my pace for 60k hands this month but I plan on making it up this week with marathon sessions during the day and night.
I thought I might throw a hand or two up here where I played pretty well. This one is from a HU match in the MSNL HU Tourney. It's a $500 entry fee heads up tournament I entered that's being held in the mid stakes nl forum on 2+2. We schedule and play the matches on our own and report back with who wins. Each round is 2 weeks long, so I'm not yet sure who I play in the second round. Games are 5/10 blinds, 3000 chips freezeout style. Round 1, I faced a guy who coincidentily lives about 15 miles from me. He was playing fairly tight and somewhat straight forward. I had been playing aggressive pre and post flop when this hand came up:
Seat 1: Villain (2415 in chips)
Seat 2: WiltOnTilt (3585 in chips)
Villain : posts small blind 5
WiltOnTilt: posts big blind 10
Dealt to WiltOnTilt [2
K
]Villain: raises 25 to 35
WiltOnTilt: raises 65 to 100
Villain: calls 65
I pick up a very modest hand in K2o in the big blind. He had been raising quite a few hands on the button, and K high could easily be good here. Of course it's not a hand that plays very well after the flop, so even though it might be ahead, taking a raise or fold approach is far superior than trying to play postflop poker oop, so I decide to repop him to 100 after he makes a standard open. He calls, which I don't like much but I'll just have to outplay him after the flop.
Flop (200) 4
4
2Good flop for me. It's hard to make a pair HU and I did. I likely have the best hand but just taking it down on the flop would be a fine result for me as playing the turn and river can be difficult. I make a standard continuation bet of $150 into a $200 pot. He calls. When he calls I figure his range of hands is still quite large. He can be calling with a small/medium pocket pair, A high, or some sort of monster, which would include JJ+ or a 4. His call is certainly a concern, but seeing how he reacts on the turn should give me a better indication of where I am. Also it should be mentioned that he can't expect this flop to have hit me very much being the reraiser preflop. Because of that he can float me (call flop to bluff turn) easily without expecting me to have much most of the time.
Turn (500) 8
Decent card for me, but since he called I'll check to keep the pot small and see if i can get to showdown.
WiltOnTilt: checks
Villain: bets 250
WiltOnTilt: calls 250
When I check here he bets 250 into a 500 pot, a decent bet. My read is that he's betting here with mostly his monsters or his air. I think this player is more likely to check the turn for pot control with most of his hands that have showdown value but aren't monsters: small/medium pocket pairs, an 8, and A high too. If he called on the flop with A high, it's because he thinks it's good at some of the time, and if it's good checking behind the turn to get to showdown would be a standard way to play it. If he bets the turn with one of these non-monster showdown value hands and I do have something, there's a good chance i'm calling and he's beat and he'll be forced to either give up or bet the river again to get me off the marginal parts of my range. So once he bet, I figured it's mostly a "nuts or nothing" spot where he either has a 4 (it's hard to flop trips) or a big pair he slowplayed pre and on the flop (unlikely as he was playing straight forward so far). Because of this I think my hand is probably good more than 1 in 3 times, which is what i'd need to call a half pot bet (obv not exactly true since I'll improve sometimes but you get the picture).
River (1000) A
WiltOnTilt: checks
Villain: bets 650
Sort of a scary card if he did decide to turn an A into a bluff on the turn, but 3-5 is the only draw that made it and the heart draw he could have been semibluffing on the turn also missed. He bets about 2/3 of the pot, a fairly sizable bet. Now he's never going to value bet any of his medium or big pairs here because with the ace showing, it "should" look like a scare card to me, and therefore he wouldnt bet the river with something like 99 here because he can't expect me to call with a worse hand. Some good, aggressive opponents would make a value bet here with something like 99 in a hyper aggro HU match, but this guy was playing more tight and straight forward, so if he had something with showdown value, he would gladly check to show it down. Which means now his bet is one of 3 things: an Ace, a 4, or total air.
Because of my reasoning on the turn, it's less likely he has an A here, so now again we're back down to a 4 or air. There's a lot more air out there than there are 4's, so i'm leaning towards a call. The next thing I looked at is our chip stacks. Remember this is a tournament not a cash game, so there are some extra considerations to be made. If I fold right now the chips stacks will be about dead even around 2900 (me) to 3100 (him). if I call here and I lose, i'd have about 2300 to his 3700, so a deficit, but certainly I'm not down and out. If I call here and I win, now I've really got him on the ropes as I'd be ahead about 4700 to 1300 in chips.
Independent of chip stacks, a call here does another thing. Whether he's got me beat or not, it sends him a message that I'm going to get to showdowns with very weak hands, which HAS to stick out in his mind. He's going to have to reduce his perceived fold equity from here on out, and a correct call in a spot like this with bottom pair can really rattle a guy. If he calls and wins he's going to look at it as "wow this donkey is never folding, i can't bluff him ever" and he should adjust to start value betting me with lesser holdings. In that case I can re-adjust to start checking stronger hands to him and letting him value bet me weak because "Wilt won't even fold bottom pair on 3 streets". So you can see some of the "out of the box" reasons why a call here can be good.
So that's what I did.
WiltOnTilt: calls 650
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Villain: shows [T
Q] (a pair of Fours)WiltOnTilt: shows [2
K] (two pair, Fours and Deuces)WiltOnTilt collected 2300 from pot
Villain said, "sick call"
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 2300 | Rake 0
Board [4s 4h 2c 8h Ac]
Seat 1: Villain (button) (small blind) showed [Ts Qd] and lost with a pair of Fours
Seat 2: WiltOnTilt (big blind) showed [2d Kc] and won (2300) with two pair, Fours and Deuces
Ship it!
Hopefully my thought process here made sense. I'm going to start cramming in the hands this week and I hope to be able to report big earnings in the near future ;-)
holla,
Aaron
posted by WiltOnTilt at 1:43 AM
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