Was trying to clean up the apartment in anticipation of my girlfriends arrival. She's been gone this week, boating around in the archipelago with a girlfriend. But Anders had some bad influence on me and practically held a gun to my head and forced me to play poker. Well, he said that the PLO $100's at Party were juicy and that's all the excuse I needed to stop cleaning the apartment.

Since my account on Party had $220 I didn't really figure I was properly rolled for the $100's (although I am sure Alameda Mike and several others would disagree), but it's 11 "Slotbooms"! That's what I am calling a minimum buyin in PLO from now on.

So I Slotboomed (it's a verb too!) 4 tables for about 45 minutes and ran the account up to $352. ptbb = 44.30 (sustainable!)

Then I really had to quit to have any chance of cleaning myself and my home up in time to still be able to go pick up the GF at the bus station.

Anders was right though, the 100's are juicy, and since I can't withdraw at the moment maybe I might as well try some aggressive BR-strategies and see if I can run it up again.

Tries rock climbing (as opposed to MVP's rock smoking) yesterday. It was ok. Scariest part by far was leaning out backwards over a 45 feet drop while tied to what seemed at the time to be a very small and weak-looking tree. Scraped my elbow a bit and banged my toe but other than that I made it both up and down a few times without any serious injuries. My arms and shoulders are a bit sore today though and I have close to zero strength left in my hands.

Played two sessions today, 2x2 hours. First session I played NL exclusively. Was up $200 a while but finished up only $70.

This was by far the weirdest hand I played:


[Jc] in the BB. UTG limps, folded to SB who miniraised with $25 behind, I call and so does UTG.

Flop comes [7s][8d]

SB now checks, I bet $3 and both call. Mkay.

Turn is the .

SB now suddenly leads for $9. Ehh... ok. I call, UTG calls.

River is the and SB pushes for $11. I still think my kicker will be good often enough to call here so I call and UTG folds.

SB shows [5h] and drags with his straight. I did not see that one coming.



And this was the most frustrating hand...

I have [9c] UTG and raise to $3. BB is the only caller.

Flop comes [Ts][8d]

BB checks, I bet $3 and now BB check/raises to $8. I 3-bet to $31. He calls.

Turn is the . Ugh.

He bets $18. I reluctantly call.

River is the . FFS...

Now he checks. I consider betting but it feels weird to turn the flopped nuts into a bluff by the river. I sigh and check behind. He shows [Js]. Double ugh.

For some reason it felt worse losing to the straight that it would have done losing to the flush.


The quality of the players however makes me confident that I would be big winner if I could have my hands stand up a little better, and perhaps cut down a bit on my bluffs.

Played 1 PLO8 $100 and two PLO $40 (5-max) in my later session and did a bit better, specifically at PLO8. In PLO it felt like I was getting run over. I would raise max on the button with say KKxx double suited and EVERYONE would call and I would be stuck with an overpair on the flop and have to give up. Don't know if I profited at all from the Omaha high, but in total my two sessions netted me a bit over $200 which is a decent pay for a days work. I think the PLO games would be highly profitable though, people would call raises out of the blinds with hands like 7622 and KQ64 so if you can just catch some flops you'll be in good shape, since they dislike folding their non-nut hands and draws.

Two hands to end the session:

The Villains...

Fishman ($200) He seems to limp/call a lot preflop out of position and then check/call or checkj/fold flops so I figure he's loose/passive, hence the name.

Hero ($100) Should have a reasonable tight image, since so many pots are raised preflop I am playing tight out of the blinds and UTG but raising pretty light OTB and in the CO.

Incognito ($100) I have no notes or any idea how he playes so I assume he is avgerage or a bit less loose than average.

Fishkiller ($400) This is a good multitabling TAG. Or he used to be a TAG, shorthanded he has been raising an awful lot preflop and CB-ing almost every time.

Muppet ($20) This guy just bought in for the minimum so I am assuming he's a muppet.



Fishman limps UTG, I raise to $4 with [Jd][7d][8h] and both Incognito and Fishkiller calls. Now Muppet who just sat down in the BB pushes for $20. Fishman folds, I call as does Incognito, but Fishkiller gets out.

Flop comes [6c][2s], I pot it, he pushes and I obviously call with the top set/current nuts.

He flips over [Qc][Tc][Js].

Turn

River

His runner runner straight drags the pot. In fact, since shorty had KKxx I have the third best hand in a three-way pot after getting it all-in with the nuts. GG

At exactly the same time I lost another full stack at the other PLO table to Fishman who called a flop bet with a gutshot and sucked out on my set, I didn't see/refused to believe he had the straight and put my chips in on the turn. If Fishman had just gotten the fuck out of the way I would have stacked the moron who was going all the way with Top Pair 3 kicker (K223 on a KT6 board). GG

The rest of the session amounted to another buyin bled off, so in total I'm down 3 buyins ($300) after 1hr of play. GG

Brag: Played 3 sessions and 6 hours today

Beat: Lost over 6 buyins



A mini-bloodbath I guess. Got fucked up pretty badly in PLO, getting sucked out a lot. Also, can someone explain the logic between calling a preflop push with 9844r? Other than him of course knowing that he's gonna spike a set to suck out on my AKKxs.

Couldn't sleep after the two first sessions so decided to make some of the money back by playing NL. Yeah, fucking right. Managed to drop 3 buyins in one hour. At least it took me 5 times as long to lose the same amount in PLO and PLO8.

After the big 6-hour losing session I took a few days off, but has since played twice, the 27:th and today.

The 27:th was the day of the Gutshot. I think I got pwned three times by people chasing and hitting their guttys and I also saw a lot of failed attempts when I checked behind on the river and they were forced to reveal their miserable holdings. Could the gutshot really be the new AA?

Two big pots played out early, once of which was really frustrating and almost put me on tilt immediatly.

The frustrating One:

I was pretty new to the table but had managed to win a pot early and was up to ~$130. It may have been the second lap and, or even the first, I had no read on the players.

[8d] on the button. UTG limps and I limp behind. Now BB miniraises (how annoying is that?)... and UTG mini-RE-raises... hrmf. I make a loose-ish call figuring they must both be donks and I have a sneaky hand in position. The BB has almost a full stack and UTG has me covered. Of course the BB fucking mini-raises again, being a gigantic homosexual and all. At least UTG just calls now so I close the betting. Still, $19 in the pot preflop and I put in $6 with 78s, maybe I should have folded to the initial miniraises huh?

Anyway, flop of course hits me pretty well coming down with [8h][Kd] giving me bottom two and a backdoor flush draw. Now BB makes a real powerplay and leads out for $3 into the $19 pot, and UTG just calls. Screw that. I raise to $31!

Back to BB who flat calls. Ok, what can he have that would play this weirdly? I figure AK or AA. Now UTG mini-raises me all of a sudden! Doubleyou tee eff?! Seriously, what's going on here? How retarded is this? Can UTG *really* have KK? What's their HD? AA/AK for BB and a flush draw for UTG? I dunno. I tank and finally decide to just push. BOTH call.

UTG has AKo
BB has... you won't believe this. He has [8s]. Yes. He minireraised J8o twice from the blind and then called off his entire stack three-way with middle pair mediocre kicker. So the main pot is like ~$350.

Turn is the brick-ish

River is the not-so-brickish-any-longer giving the moron with AKo a bigger two-pair and causing me to hurt my hand a bit as I slam my fist against the desk. It sucked.

To cheer you (well, me really) up I now bring you...

The one with the good ending:

UTG limps with $60 and I raise to $4 with [4c] on th ebutton, BB calls as does UTG.

Flop comes [3s][5s] and the action gets weird...

BB leads out for $11 and UTG thinks for a while and mini-raises that donk-bet. What the... ok, let's do some deducing.

BB obviously does not have a huge hand, if he did he would check raise. He probably has something like top pair, a small non-set pair or some junk. UTG on the other hand limped, called a raise and now miniraises when there's both a flush and a straight draw out. I don't know what to put him on exactly but I figure Axs for the flush draw to be a likely candidate, and an overpair like 77 or so to be another option. Not sure though.

Well... BB is the only one who coveres me and I am fairly sure I can get him out with a raise. UTG may or may not call a raise but even if he does I should either be slightly ahead or have 8+2 outs.

I push.

BB gets out quickly, but UTG doesn't hesitate to call. He flips over some brilliantly played AA with no spade. Turn is a magic 4 and he's busted. Don't you just love it when people play AA like retards and get sucked out on? I know I do.

The day ended up +$220 or so.

Today I played two sessions. I started out playing two PLO8 and two PLO tables. Unfortunately there were only lower limit tables available. Seems to be like that on the swedish site that during daytime mainly microstake players are active, at least at the non-Holdem games. Anyway I made like $140 and had a pretty uneventful time.

The second session was not as uneventful. In the first 30 minutes I played exactly 3 big pots. Here they are:

#1 - PLO 5-max (4-handed)
I have Q884s in the BB and get a free look.

Flop comes A87 with a flush draw. SB checks, I pot and button is the only caller.

Turn is a Q bringing another flush draw. I pot, and now button miniraises.

Ok, he does NOT have AA for sure (no raise preflop, and he can't cold call with AA on such a drawy flop) and QQ seems unlikely. Why the hell would he miniraise ANY hand on this turn. It's probably intended to get a cheap showdown. Anyway, it seems clear he doesn't have AA or QQ so I don't care, I re-raise. He goes all-in and I call. He has A7 having picked up the flush draw and of course hits. Blah!

I had 75% equity when the money went in.


#2 - PLO8 full ring

I have [3h][8s][Jc] on the button.

3 limpers to me and I pot it. SB and all the limpers call.

Flop comes AJ6 with a flush draw, checked to me and I pot it ($40) with my top two and crap emergency low. Half-stacked player check/raises all-in and I of course call. He has A2 with the flush draw, hits his flush and scoops me.

I had 63.2% equity when the money went in


#3 - PLO8 full ring

Now I pick up AA3Q double suited in MP and I just know it is time to lose some money. One limper and I raise, I get 3 callers and then BB re-pots it. Well, these AA just got a lot easier to play. I re-raise max leaving $0.7 in my stack. One shorty calls all-in and the BB calls as well.

BB has [2c][6h][Js]
Shorty has [8d][Qh][Kd] (nice call)

Flop comes 67K all spades so I'm fucked.

I had 61.7% equity when the money went in


So as usual I had dug myself a big hole to dig out of. After another half hour of Omaha where I was mainly treading water, I switched to NL for a while. I think that was a good move as I felt I was in pretty good control of the tables. I played a few hands that were pretty interesting, a few very slim river calls with A high or underpairs, a cautious QQ and a nice little AA-crusher where yet again someone decides to get cute preflop with AA and ends up getting sucked out on.

Unfortunately I am way too tired to type them up now so you'll have to wait until tomorrow.



In other news I have...

- Been to see King Lear at a theater
- Been to a outdoor party to eat a whole barbequed boar (not by myself though)
- Seen my home team crush Ljungskile today 2-0 (closer to 4-0 than 2-1).

I'll try to get some pics up.

Off to a good start! Initially it looked very hairy though. I was down a bit over $300 after just playing 15 minutes.

Usually I'm pretty conservative with my BR but I saw a PLO $1000 table that looked kind of juicy (ie: every pot was raised preflop), so I decided to give it a Slotboom (ie: buy in for the minimum and try to get it all-in ASAP with a premium hand/draw exploiting the aggro deepstacks).

I sit down with $200 and after a few hands I get AJJKs or something simmilar. There's a raise, a call, and I push. Both call. Flop is T high with two spades, one guy bets and the other folds. He has QQT8 with spades and has me in very bad shape, the Ace of spades on the turn seals the deal and I am down $200.

Had some pretty cold decks at the other tables as well and almost got the dizzy feeling... however, I put my shoulders to the wheel and grinded it out at 3 PLO $100 and one PLO $200 table. After a bit more than an hour I was actually up about $200 in total. I felt like I was happy with that result but still wanted to get the full two hours in without risking donking off too much so I switched to two 5CD $100 and two PLO8 $40 and $20 tables for the lower variance. Once the two hours were up I had made a pretty $280. I also got in 1.5 hours at Party this morning earning $75 at the PLO and PLO8 $25 tables.

So...

3.5 hours
$355 profit

Looking good so far

Got four hours in yesterday. A party friend of mine, who's also the former chairman of Mensa, was over and I played for half an hour to show him how it works. We also made a small html-based application that I'll see if I'll use when playing. I had one interesting hand during this half hour:

#1 - Got it in bad
Folded to the button who open-limps, I have AA in the SB and raise it to $4. BB cold calls but the button actually folds.

Flop comes [Js][9h]

I lead out for $8, BB flat calls. Turn is the completing the flush.

I check, he bets $8 and I check/raise all-in.

He calls quickly with [5s] and holds up.

Bad play by me? The perfect play would of course have been to check/call the turn getting such a nice price to boat up, but I also feel like I need to check/raise the turn a decent amount of time in order to protect my checks.


The second session started out horribly as usual. Playing Omaha I got hit by a combination, losing big pots at 3 of the 4 tables simultaneously. Kept my cool and kept grinding though so after an hour I was up almost a full buyin. It felt like I was treading water though so I decided I would switch to NL instead. 30 minutes later I have turned my 1-buyin lead into a 3-buyin hole.

About half of that loss went to one particular guy. I first noticed him when he limp/called my raise OOP with K8s, hit an 8 on a JJQ8 board and called me down and won against my AK.

Then he miniraised and called my AKs re-raise with A8s. On the JJ2 flop he lead into me, then CALLED my 4x raise. Of course the river was an 8.

Last but not least he calls my raise with A6s. I once again have AKs. Flop comes 985 and he calls my pot bet. Turn is an A and I bet big again and he calls again, river is the inevitable 6 and he calls a 1/3 valuebet.

Fortunately there were other players wo weren't quite as bad, but at least nowhere near as lucky so I made my money back. In total 4 hours of playing netted me only a little over $160, not satisfactory but considering I was down about $300 twice during this time I'll take it.


Now the sun has finally showed up after staying away for most of the summer, so I'm gonna grab a book and go lay down in the grass.