Down Minnesota Highways

In this journal of woe and busto-land, I was going to add another pair in the shape of decker (http://decker2003.livejournal.com/), who was $150 up after 1500 hands of $3-$6 on Full Tilt and his last $400 down after 3000, but then he found $111 in rakeback sitting in his account and, miraculously, still has $45 of it left. So, no online busto tale there. An exemplary tale of optimism to depression in ten easy months could not be easier to find than with poor old decker. "I started this year thinking that I might have my best year ever", wrote decker (or some such similar). Now it turns out that 2006 will be his first losing year since, well, since internet poker started for him. Ahh yes, 2006 will be remembered as tough.


And then Threebet33, who isn't anywhere near busto and is still up for 2006, still managed to report his worst losing run ever. Of course, this tends to happen when you play games about which you admit you know nothing. You win a bit, then do your bollox, and then return to the game at which you "know" you can win it back. At which point you do your bollox again. See Twenty-One Outs Twice.

But then Mikey chose to spoil the party by saying that he had been running well. This despite his inability to spot the bit at the top of the table of a PLO game that has the "High-Low" bit missing. Easily done. Er, well, not, actually.


A quick 10-minute visit to dentist yesterday lunchtime meant that the gym was missed. Damn. And now I've got bits of expander stuck in four of the non-spaces between my teeth, so that the required spaces can be created. No, I don't know what's going on in this ridiculously complex process either, but I do know that it feels as if I have giant bits of orange peel stuck between my teeth. Flossing here is out as well, although brushing is no problem.

Uggh, god knows how I will put up with 18 months of expanders and retainers and braces and shit. Still, it's something that I've always promised myself when I could afford it. Rock on middle-aged crises....

Is the end nigh?

A very interesting thread on 2+2 relating to probable (well, almost certain) bots on Party 6-max games at levels from 10/20 to 30/60.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=8022640&an=0&page=0#Post8022640

Simon G noted that this had been a tough year at 6-max, and one has to wonder whether the two factors are related.

These bots have a couple of strategies that mess up many players in 6-max. They three-bet a lot from the Small Blind (with a very wide range) and they defend the big blind manically. They then play a fairly straightforward post-flop game, with the occasional very thin value bet/raise on the river with ace-high on a rag board.

Now, this is all by-the-by for me. I knew that I was playing some bots at $2-$4 limit on Party and I developed some strategies to beat them (note too that these bots also had the agression from SB and defence of BB habit). But these bots will get better, and they are all beating the complete fish and WTDs. I'm going to keep playing as long as it seems to me that there is cash to be made at the ring games, but we could well reach the stage where six different poker programs are playing each other at a 6-max table. The poker sites don't care whether their players are machines programmed by humans, or humans. In fact, they would probably prefer them to be machines, all of which could play a lot longer, and the AI guys behind them will be perpetually "tweaking" the AI so that it wins, except that the other programmers are doing the same. Net result, bots playing for 24 hours and all going broke slowly, except for the money that they take off the occasional human who is foolish enough to sit down.

2007 could be the last year of online limit for me, and it might come sooner than December 2007. I'll probably switch to bonus hunting for a while, and then play some tournaments for fun, and, well, maybe I'll have to return to the live game for my fix.

+++++++

A couple of days ago I posted a hand relating to 88 in utg+1. Matt noted that the problem that arises is common to middling pairs played out-of-position (OOP). This, of course, is true. It would be nice to get KK or AA all of the time and to be paid off. Unfortunately the metagame requires that you also make plays with hands like this, where you will be faced with tough choices post-flop.

Seat 2: Villain 2 ($61)
Seat 5: Villain 1 ($88.50)
Seat 7: Hero ($171)

Ineedtoknow15 posts the small blind of $1
Villain 1 posts the big blind of $2

The button is in seat #3

*** HOLE CARDS ***

Dealt to Hero [8♣ 8♠]
Fold to
Hero (UTG+1) raises to $4
Fold to
Villain 2 raises to $6 (Villain 2 is something like 22% VPIP 20% raises. This could be AQ, AK, any pair nines up, or the occasional bit of madness like KQs)
Villain 1 calls $4 (I don’t know much about Villain 2).
Hero calls $2


*** FLOP *** [9♠ 5♡ 4♠]

Villain 1 checks
Hero bets $2
Villain 2 raises to $4
Villain 1 calls $4

Hero does, what?

Matt observed that he would probably call here on the chance of hitting an 8, and that would be that. I noted that an 8 might cause more trouble, because there is nothing that rules out one of the players having 67s. Anyway, here's what happened.



Hero folds

*** TURN *** [9♠ 5♡ 4♠] [6♣]
Villain 1 checks
Villain 2 checks
*** RIVER *** [9♠ 5♡ 4♠ 6♣] [5◊]
Villain 1 bets $4
Villain 2 calls $4
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Villain 1 shows [A♡ 4♡] (two pair, Fives and Fours)
Villain 2 mucks
Villain 1 wins the pot ($36) with two pair, Fives and Fours

*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $37 | Rake $1
Board: [9♠ 5♡ 4♠ 6♣ 5◊]
Seat 2: Villain 2 mucked [Q◊ A◊] - a pair of Fives
Seat 5: Villain 1 (big blind) showed [A♡ 4♡] and won ($36) with two pair, Fives and Fours
Seat 7: Hero folded on the Flop


It later transpired that Villain 1 (the one with Ace-Four) was a useless player (he later made another play that cost me, and him, money). If I had known this at the time I might have either three-bet the flop or simply gone into check-call mode (I know that this style is a matter of some controversy, but I do make a lot of dosh from it from Laggy players and the occasional Loose player who thinks that he might just be able to take it down with his missed draw).