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I'll kind of do this story in a standard narrative order -- starting in the middle, going back to the beginning, and then continuing to the end.
I had been playing for about an hour, four-tabling $100-buy-in. I'd had to make three (or maybe four) marginal laydowns for reasonable-sized pots that I had built but which I was sure I had been outdrawn on at the river. Then I got it nearly all back by making a big marginal all-in call on the turn (board paired KQJJ v my flopped straight with ATs in the big blind - turned out opponent had carved his play of AA horrifically).
Then this hand came up. I had about $78, Villain had $70, the two blinds had about $40 each. Blinds of 50c-$1
In MP1 or MP2 I got QJs (diamonds) and I raised to $3.50 (maybe $3). Cold Called by villain in cut-off. (35%/0% over 30 hands). Called by small blind and big blind.
Flop comes AKx rainbow and it is checked round. Turn brings a ten, making my straight but putting two clubs on the board. Small blind checks and Big blind bets $2, which looks all the world like a flush draw to me. I raise to $12, not wanting to give anyone pot odds. Somewhat to my surprise, CO guy flat-calls. Small Blind and Big Blind fold. $38 in pot. I have $66 behind. CO has $58.
River brings a second Ace. I check (I can see an argument for a blocking bet here, BTW, but I preferred the chance that he would put in some kind of modest bet with a missed flush draw. It's hard to see him cold-calling with anything on the turn that isn't a draw). There's an argument for a blocking bet, I agree, but it's irrelevant to this particular hand. We can save that theoretical discussion for another day.
Opponent goes all-in very quickly.
Bleeaagh.
I should make my fourth or fifth big laydown here, because I'm seriously confused. Instead, I take my line of "maybe he's bet big with the missed flush". So I called, even though, and this is the key, even though I had a bad feeling about it. If you have a bad feeling about calling a big bet, you should fold.
He flipped over AK for the top full house.
Did he play it very well or very badly? He cetainly played it in an unorthodox fashion. But I made my own mistakes. My $12 raise is fine in that I am not giving him pot odds to call with his AK, but it does give him implied odds if I call an all-in bet -- which is what I did.
But it's not the technical part of this that matters. I was immediately reminded of John Fox's stuff. I should re-read that book every month. What matters more than anything is how you are feeling in yourself. Those marginal laydowns in the previous hour had worn me down. In addition, an hour of four-tabling is about my limit before my concentration falters, and I had gone over that limit by about five minutes. I made a wrong decision not because I am a bad player, but because I wasn't mentally fit for the game.
The more I play this NL lark, the more convinced I am that 90% of winning is down to stuff mentioned by Bluff in his posts and by Fox. Get a good seat. Don't play when you are tired. Play ABC stuff. Wait for your opponent to make the kind of mistake that I made here. Much of the rest is window-dressing. Sure, the other (clever) stuff matters, but it's not a very significant factor in the grand scheme of things.
In a sense, this is one of the irritating parts of the Miller/Sklansky book. Everything they write is correct, but they start off covering big river decisions, when they should start off covering the things that have a greater impact on your overall win/loss - table selection, mental alertness, seat selection. And leaving the game the second that you think that, for whatever reason, you might not be playing your 'A' game.
What had impacted me was not just the time I had been playing, but also the mental wearing of having several big decisions in that hour. Eventually you call because, well, you are fed up with folding. You don't take the hand as a separate event, but as part of the gestalt of your poker session. And that is a big mistake.
Miller and Sklansky kind of assume that you will do this (take the hand as a separate event). But people don't, and this is where they are exploitable.
Generally, I think that this is where I am beating the college kids who have read these books. I vary my raise sizes and plays based far more on who is in the blinds, what the stats of my opponents are, and what has happened the previous few hands, than they do. But I have to work (or, rather, protect against) it happening to me at the higher levels.
If you manipulate it right, your opponents will give you their money. Technically proficient play of cards will help, but if they are in the mood to spunk it away, the chances are that they will do so anyway, no matter how cunningly or stupidly you size your raises or choose what hands to see a flop with.
Anyhoo, I pulled away from the game and came back to another site (Full Tilt) and the $50 buy-in, about an hour later. The cards ran well and I cleaned up.
Then, an hour after that, I decided to play about half an hour of NoIQ at a lower level. First hand (posting in the CO) I picked up J7s (clubs). Two limpers. I limped, and button mini-raised. Blinds called and I called. $10 in pot.
Flop came T98 two hearts. Unless there is QJ out there I'm looking very good.
Checked to me and I bet $7. Folded round to utg who called. All others fold.
Turn brings a six of spades. Opponent goes all in before I can blink and I call. River brings a queen, which at least made me feel even more comfortable before opponent mucked, obviously with just the singleton seven.
Now, nothing clever about my play here. No "putting him to a difficult decision". Opponent simply gave me his chips. I can play hour after hour, stealing pots for bits and pieces, winning a little, and waiting for opponents to donate. Which, eventually, they will. I could virtually afford (at this level - I know that it's different at higher levels) to fold to big bets wherever I have a shadow of a doubt about my call, and still end up comfortably in front.
As DY put it, there is less to this game than you think.
The problem, of course, is that we get back to the need to play like an automaton, albeit not the kind of rock-like short-stacked automaton that you see the most of in these games. I've only played about 30,000 hands and I'm already at a position where I'm unlikely to have more than one "decision" an hour (i.e., once every 200 hands). Those four tough decisions in an hour were unusual, and the very unusuality affected my mental form.
If you start winning, the concentration starts to falter (you start surfing the web on the other computer, or watching TV) and then you start to lose.
These are the nuts and bolts of winning at low-limit NL. And these are the things which the books should focus on, leaving the actual cards until later in the book.
Once again, John Fox rules.
I had been playing for about an hour, four-tabling $100-buy-in. I'd had to make three (or maybe four) marginal laydowns for reasonable-sized pots that I had built but which I was sure I had been outdrawn on at the river. Then I got it nearly all back by making a big marginal all-in call on the turn (board paired KQJJ v my flopped straight with ATs in the big blind - turned out opponent had carved his play of AA horrifically).
Then this hand came up. I had about $78, Villain had $70, the two blinds had about $40 each. Blinds of 50c-$1
In MP1 or MP2 I got QJs (diamonds) and I raised to $3.50 (maybe $3). Cold Called by villain in cut-off. (35%/0% over 30 hands). Called by small blind and big blind.
Flop comes AKx rainbow and it is checked round. Turn brings a ten, making my straight but putting two clubs on the board. Small blind checks and Big blind bets $2, which looks all the world like a flush draw to me. I raise to $12, not wanting to give anyone pot odds. Somewhat to my surprise, CO guy flat-calls. Small Blind and Big Blind fold. $38 in pot. I have $66 behind. CO has $58.
River brings a second Ace. I check (I can see an argument for a blocking bet here, BTW, but I preferred the chance that he would put in some kind of modest bet with a missed flush draw. It's hard to see him cold-calling with anything on the turn that isn't a draw). There's an argument for a blocking bet, I agree, but it's irrelevant to this particular hand. We can save that theoretical discussion for another day.
Opponent goes all-in very quickly.
Bleeaagh.
I should make my fourth or fifth big laydown here, because I'm seriously confused. Instead, I take my line of "maybe he's bet big with the missed flush". So I called, even though, and this is the key, even though I had a bad feeling about it. If you have a bad feeling about calling a big bet, you should fold.
He flipped over AK for the top full house.
Did he play it very well or very badly? He cetainly played it in an unorthodox fashion. But I made my own mistakes. My $12 raise is fine in that I am not giving him pot odds to call with his AK, but it does give him implied odds if I call an all-in bet -- which is what I did.
But it's not the technical part of this that matters. I was immediately reminded of John Fox's stuff. I should re-read that book every month. What matters more than anything is how you are feeling in yourself. Those marginal laydowns in the previous hour had worn me down. In addition, an hour of four-tabling is about my limit before my concentration falters, and I had gone over that limit by about five minutes. I made a wrong decision not because I am a bad player, but because I wasn't mentally fit for the game.
The more I play this NL lark, the more convinced I am that 90% of winning is down to stuff mentioned by Bluff in his posts and by Fox. Get a good seat. Don't play when you are tired. Play ABC stuff. Wait for your opponent to make the kind of mistake that I made here. Much of the rest is window-dressing. Sure, the other (clever) stuff matters, but it's not a very significant factor in the grand scheme of things.
In a sense, this is one of the irritating parts of the Miller/Sklansky book. Everything they write is correct, but they start off covering big river decisions, when they should start off covering the things that have a greater impact on your overall win/loss - table selection, mental alertness, seat selection. And leaving the game the second that you think that, for whatever reason, you might not be playing your 'A' game.
What had impacted me was not just the time I had been playing, but also the mental wearing of having several big decisions in that hour. Eventually you call because, well, you are fed up with folding. You don't take the hand as a separate event, but as part of the gestalt of your poker session. And that is a big mistake.
Miller and Sklansky kind of assume that you will do this (take the hand as a separate event). But people don't, and this is where they are exploitable.
Generally, I think that this is where I am beating the college kids who have read these books. I vary my raise sizes and plays based far more on who is in the blinds, what the stats of my opponents are, and what has happened the previous few hands, than they do. But I have to work (or, rather, protect against) it happening to me at the higher levels.
If you manipulate it right, your opponents will give you their money. Technically proficient play of cards will help, but if they are in the mood to spunk it away, the chances are that they will do so anyway, no matter how cunningly or stupidly you size your raises or choose what hands to see a flop with.
Anyhoo, I pulled away from the game and came back to another site (Full Tilt) and the $50 buy-in, about an hour later. The cards ran well and I cleaned up.
Then, an hour after that, I decided to play about half an hour of NoIQ at a lower level. First hand (posting in the CO) I picked up J7s (clubs). Two limpers. I limped, and button mini-raised. Blinds called and I called. $10 in pot.
Flop came T98 two hearts. Unless there is QJ out there I'm looking very good.
Checked to me and I bet $7. Folded round to utg who called. All others fold.
Turn brings a six of spades. Opponent goes all in before I can blink and I call. River brings a queen, which at least made me feel even more comfortable before opponent mucked, obviously with just the singleton seven.
Now, nothing clever about my play here. No "putting him to a difficult decision". Opponent simply gave me his chips. I can play hour after hour, stealing pots for bits and pieces, winning a little, and waiting for opponents to donate. Which, eventually, they will. I could virtually afford (at this level - I know that it's different at higher levels) to fold to big bets wherever I have a shadow of a doubt about my call, and still end up comfortably in front.
As DY put it, there is less to this game than you think.
The problem, of course, is that we get back to the need to play like an automaton, albeit not the kind of rock-like short-stacked automaton that you see the most of in these games. I've only played about 30,000 hands and I'm already at a position where I'm unlikely to have more than one "decision" an hour (i.e., once every 200 hands). Those four tough decisions in an hour were unusual, and the very unusuality affected my mental form.
If you start winning, the concentration starts to falter (you start surfing the web on the other computer, or watching TV) and then you start to lose.
These are the nuts and bolts of winning at low-limit NL. And these are the things which the books should focus on, leaving the actual cards until later in the book.
Once again, John Fox rules.
