7 2 BLUFF...Diary of a poker player

I wasn’t sure about Daniel but having watched his blog he comes across as a guy who is trying to live a life the right way. The episode with his vision board and what he is working on in his life was very interesting I have to say he’s a good guy trying to live a life that if we all did the same would make the world a better place to live in. I share the same philosophy create the world you’d want to live in, if you find a wallet hand it in to the police etc.

The strange this is we are both working on poker a game that no matter which way you look at it may do more harm than good.  When I see graphs of people having lost £500K I worry.

My 27th place finish nearly took me into the top 3,000 still a long way to go….

I was talking to a young Irish player who was excellent in the Aria $400 and we were discussing poker and PioSolver came up as a cool tool for cash game analysis.

From their webpage below:

PioSOLVER is a very fast GTO solver for Holdem. It handles postflop spots with arbitrary starting ranges, stack sizes, bet sizes as well as desired accuracy. It’s the first in a new generation of tools moving poker from a game based mainly on intuition to a game based on analysis and math.

PioSOLVER answers questions which were impossible to answer before: What should betting frequency on the flop be? What hands are the best semi-bluffs on the turn? What hands are the best bluff catchers on the river? Which c-bet size is the best to use on the flop?

It calculates optimal strategies, exact values of every play in every situation and displays the results in the user friendly, easy to navigate PioVIEWER. PioVIEWER makes navigating the solution tree a pleasure. Its features are designed to make it as easy as possible to comprehend GTO solutions, learn from them and analyze them.

There is a free version here seems a bit complicated but I may give it a look.

Quick Start Video below

Back home to my regular game, still slightly jet lagged but had an energy drink and arrived just after the start at a new table.

I played well and was involved in plenty of pots, but in Aspers QJ is King and you should rarely bluff only value bet and I lost a few chips bluffing undoing all my early work.

A great double up before the break gave me double chip average going into level 5. Cards were a  little dead and I  re-raised two short stacks who had min bet with Ad4d the flop was K96 two diamonds and I bet 15K 3/4 pot to get a call, the ace came on the turn and when checked to I put my opponent all in to be called by A9 for two pair. The river bricked and I was down to 40K. I should have perhaps shoved the flop with my nut flush draw or bet full pot.

I moved to another table and opened A40 from MP to 6,000 with blinds at 3,000/1,500 and 400 antes off a stack of 55K , I got a raise to 16,000 from a big stack and a call from the big blind on a short stack. This is a clear fold, there were 60 left out of about 200. I thought the re-raise had taken my min-bet to be weak and was exploiting me. I stacked my chips as if to shove he seemed to look uncomfortable, so I moved all in. He insta called  with As6s as did the BB with pocket sevens and he won the pot with trips 6s.

My play was awful and I went home in a foul mood, it was a clear fold and I was beyond frustrated at how I can still make such basic errors. I had over 15BB, I could have found better spots and waited for my luck with the deck to change. Instead I chalked up another too familiar loss.

I think I’ll take a break and review my game, when you are low it is time to study harder and become better, noticeably better.

Here’s the plan

1. Review shove tables up to 15BB and playing short stack poker
2. Review bubble play
3. Review why I get to the bubble short stacked too often
4. Study Mixed Game
5. Use the tools for review PioSolver , Flopzilla, Holdem Manager, Sit n Go Wizard
6. Deconstruct my game fully and remove the weaknesses
7. Define my ranges for full ring and six max and any adjustments for player type
8. Review Small Blind and Big Blind play defending range
9. Review bet sizing strategy and what is optimal for various stages of tournaments. Currently I am 3BB UTG and 2.5BB MP and BUTTON with a shift to 2.2BB near bubble
10. Listen to my mental game Audio books Little and Tendler again and again. Last night was a mental problem that needs to be addressed.

That’s quite a list I don’t think I’ll play again until I have done the work on most of these.

Back to the books.

Arrived in Las Vegas on Thursday afternoon  unpacked and had a quite night ahead of the 10 am $150 game at Caesars Friday morning.

Caesars $150 a guy opened for 25BB from and I shoved 29BB with JJ only for him to finally call with 55, he hit a 5 first card out to all but send me to the rail. I was well placed and instead of being chip lead hit the road.

Came 27th out of 230 at the Aria  $240 for $426. 5 ×1$ Bloody Mary’s so for the day up $16 for 12 hrs poker…tough game…. $12K for first…

Played the 1 pm at the Golden Nugget. I never got going but didn’t do anything wrong then finally shoved 15BB with QQ into AK all in pre-flop. An ace on the turn sent me to the mail. I love the bar in the Nugget such a great fish tank…I’d love to have this in my lounge…one day perhaps…

Caesars $150 30th out of 52 runners horrible suckout on river when all in on the turn with 2 pair versus AQ on an ace high flop, ace on the river aghhh!!!

Fun table…how poker should be meeting new people with plenty of laughter and good banter. So now $450 down having played five tournaments cashing in one…2 awful bad beats in Caesars have skewed my results…add an extra 4 $1 Bloody Mary’s to my tab….going big tomorrow at Wynn..need a win at the Wynn…

$400 Aria $19K up top came 34th when it paid 21. Played my heart out shoved KJo which was correct according to SnapShove called by AK who left me with 3BB which went in with 740 I hit my 7 v K 10 but villain rivered the straight

Lost $400 at cash on last morning played from 9 am to 1 pm then checked out.

Got rivered for $330 when I shoved with a turned straight and got called by a flush draw. Played badly misplayed several hands but it was fun and I shouldn’t have dusted off the dollars.

Total down for trip $1,250

Off to Vegas Thursday new hoodie arrived today, watched Negreanu videos and chilled all day…going to pack tonight and be ready…not sure what book I’l take perhaps “The Cold Six Thousand”… or “Cowboys Full”

I love poker and I love life…Vegas bring it on!!!

Sammy Farha: “Just play every hand, you can’t miss them all.”
Rick Bennet: “In the long run there’s no luck in poker, but the short run is longer than most people know.”
Benny Binion: “Trust everyone, but always cut the cards.”
Dutch Boyd: “Poker is a lot like sex, everyone thinks they are the best, but most don’t have a clue what they are doing!”
Doyle Brunson: “May the flop be with you.”
Phil Hellmuth: “No matter how much you may want to think of Holdém as a card game played by people, in many respects it is even more valid to think of it as a game about people that happens to be played with cards.”
Joe Laurie Jr.: “If you play bridge badly you make your partner suffer, but if you play poker badly you make everybody happy.”
Jesse May: “Poker is a combination of luck and skill. People think mastering the skill part is hard, but they’re wrong. The trick to poker is mastering the luck.”
Paul Newman: “A dollar won is twice as sweet as a dollar earned.”
Mark Pilarski: “The smarter you play, the luckier you’ll be.”
Mike Sexton: “The name of the game is no-limit Texas Hold’em, the game that takes a minute to learn but a lifetime to master.”

This is the biggest ever online live stream win well worth a watch

I want one of these the chairs used at the WSOP final tables, perhaps I can treat myself to one after Las Vegas.

On second thoughts just watched Daniel Negreanu in his Vlog saying he finds them uncomfortable and wishes they used the normal chairs at the WSOP final tables.