Thursday, November 27, 2008

2201 hands

Poker's going great for the first time in what feels like forever. I've been finding tons of really great tables lately and have generally just been running pretty damn well. What's awesome about streaks like this is that I'm really not running that great (all in ev says I'm miles above expectation, but as has been argued in forums, that stat isn't exactly accurate for all luck). I just feel really confident. I guess yet again I shouldn't get caught up in the winnings and start feeling like I'm unbeatable again. It's just hard not to when you catch a terrible beat (88>TT aipf), then go ahead and win the stack back within like 30 hands. So poker is good. 2k in two days is always nice.

Going to the chiropractor is awesome too. For a good day and a half there I was in the worst pain I've ever been in. I woke up after my typical shitty sleep feeling just 'kind of' shitty, then it just snapped out of place and the pain was so bad I wanted to puke. Usually I can lay on my back or stand straight and the pain goes away, but this felt like swimmer's foot for your back, multiplied by 10. Anyways I finally got it all set up and went to the chiropractors, and he's A+. I think he's done a good handful of nhl player's backs so I definitely trust the guy. There's something about someone physically shifting your back into shape. I walk out of that place feeling like I'm standing taller and straighter every time. Not having chronic back pain is nice too. Thanks Dr. Marv!

Just something that came to mind now, I think I'm realizing one of the big reasons I ran so well a month or two ago or whenever it was. Reading Elements of Poker is making me understand it. I used to play a ton of short sessions. Tommy Angelo preaches taking tons of breaks, and making sure you cut sessions while you're still on your A game. Put simply, if you cut your sessions off right when you reach your C game (or well before you reach that point), then your overall play will consist of a higher % of your A game, meaning you can lop that C game off and start playing your A game more often. I think I was quitting for the wrong reasons (I'd be up a buyin or two and quit mostly out of worry of losing it then finishing the session pissed off and feeling 'down' for the day), but now I know that it in fact helped me, and it's something I think I'll go back to. Short sessions ensure you don't start zoning out, which is something I often do too.

That's today's rant, just kind of rambling aimlessly yet again. Thanks for reading my boring shit, if you got this far. Oh, here are some hands since I'm guessing that's the only interesting part to the blog :)



Against a reg! hah!



Thank you Mr. Slowplay



Pretty marginal, but I like it. Villain is a reg who loves to defend his blinds, and rarely folds to 4bets. I could be wrong, but I think we're in pretty good shape here.



It's like looking at a mirror, except me last month!



Thank you Mr. Fish.



Little bit of steam coming off my head there.



Against an aggro fish. Pretty happy stacking there, especially after just flatting the flop raise.



Against another, less aggro fish. Probably a bad calldown. Snap minraises usually don't mean trips, but I guess here it did.

And those are literally the 3 losingest pots I've played in the last two days. I run goot.

2 comments:

dakota-xx said...

Nice hands - it is really helpful to watch them play out. Is it standard to raise in early position with a small pair? I usually limp in with those in most positions.

ChuckTs said...

Generally yes, though there are definitely times I'll open fold them from the first two positions or so. Depends on the table conditions. Small stakes full ring games however, I think limping is a perfectly good strategy. 6max and FR are two different games obviously.

Open limping in general though is something you should try to eliminate from your game. It's really exploitable and the only time you should do it really is when the other players at the table are bad enough that they a) don't know what you're doing (you're only really ever limping with small potential hands like 22-55 etc), and b) will pay you off if you hit.