Played Crappy

Had my 1^st losing session of the week last night. I was somewhat card dead and kept getting coolered but I also played a few hands terribly. Still, I only ended the night down roughly $30. It was just one of those nights where everyone always seemed to get there and I didn’t. There were two hands that I played absolutely terribly and I’m still kicking myself over it. I was trying fancier plays against players that just don’t recognize them so it is 100% my fault for being stupid. I’m probably lucky that I ended up down less than a buy-in.

Here is one of my favorite ways to be coolered:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1576623

Another night…Another Winning Session

Played some full ring PLO last night and continued to play/run well. Over 735 hands I picked up another 6.25 buy-ins across 3 levels totaling ~ $270.

Since Sept. 19^th I have only had 4 losing sessions. Two were for less than a buy-in, one was for one buy-in and the other was for two BI’s. I attribute this to several factors. One those factors being that I’m multi-tabling which always seems to reduce the overall variance in a single session. Playing/running well also helps. I also feel as though I’m playing levels where the players just don’t seem to have a clue for the most part. I know that I’m easily capable of playing and beating the games at the higher limits, but I’m sticking to the game plan and I’m going to exercise good bankroll management and work my way up the levels like I would if I were a true beginner.

One thing that I have noticed is that you have to play these lower limits in a totally different manner than you would the games at the bigger tables. You can’t buy pots that often and you can’t run people out of pots with aggression like you can at higher limits. I’ve found myself playing a somewhat tight more passive style than I’m accustomed to. At these tables it is really a matter of playing the right hands at the right times and controlling pots and then when you have the goods, value betting. You can throw creative plays right out the window because they just won’t work against most of these players. Occasionally there will be a player that I think I can pull a move on and naturally I do this every chance I get.

Here are my PT stats for Oct. 1 – Oct. 9. (click to enlarge)

As you can see, I’m hardly pre-flop raising at all but at this level it just doesn’t make much of a difference. Every now and then a table will come together where I could raise it up more often but it is just not that often and people here just do not respect raises. So I just wait until the flop and go from there. Getting the money in the pot just isn’t a problem after the flop in most cases anyway. As I move up I will definitely be reverting to my old style and raising more often pre-flop.

Running Well

I’ve been playing a lot of PLO in the evenings for the past couple of weeks and have been running well. In the last 2 ½ weeks I have picked up around 46 buy-ins across different levels.

.10c/.25c – 32 ½ buy-ins

.25c/.50c – 13 ½ buy-ins

I’ve been working my way up the levels in PLO the same way I did with NLHE and SNG’s. So far so good and hopefully things continue to go the way they have been.

In the past I did what I called “challenges” where I would take a $50 starting bankroll and work it up to $10k. I did this with SNG’s 2x and NLHE 2 or 3 times. It was a pain in the ass but it took away from the boredom of the daily grind. Anyway, I’m doing something similar with PLO except there is no real end goal and I’m more focused on practicing good bank-roll management while working my way up the levels.

A fun hand:

http://www.pokerhand.org/index.php?page=view&hand=1568279