I haven't been posting here but I haven't left! Kenny paid me a visit a couple days ago while I was playing a sitngo, so I told myself I would start posting again on a more regular basis. I played the Stars 10/20 game all last week and the swings are crazy. I won $9K my first two days there but unfortunately lost back a good portion of it the next day. So I took a break and went back to play today. Here are a few hands. Enjoy (and comment).

Villian in this hand is H@#INGGOL who has gained celebrity status on pokerstars for having won hundreds of thousands in only a few months that this game has been in existence. He is insanely laggy, bordering 'maniac,' raises a ton preflop, and pretty much doesn't fold much when he hits a flop. $5 to anyone who can guess his hand by the way.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $20 BB (8 handed)

CO ($840)
Button ($3790.10)
SB ($608.50)
BB ($6077)
UTG ($5201)
Hero ($2451)
MP1 ($7402)
MP2 ($1882)

Preflop: Hero is UTG+1 with , .
1 fold, Hero calls $20, MP1 raises to $80, 5 folds, Hero calls $60.

Flop: ($190) , , (2 players)
Hero checks, MP1 bets $120, Hero raises to $400, MP1 calls $280.

Turn: ($990) (2 players)
Hero bets $600, MP1 calls $600.

River: ($2190) (2 players)
Hero bets $1371 (All-In), MP1 calls $1371.

Final Pot: $4932


Villian in these two hands is another big winner in this game but he is more of a tight-aggressive player who doesn't bluff much but makes a killing off his big hands. (curzdog, for anyone familiar with this game).

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $20 BB (9 handed)

Button ($853)
SB ($3034.10)
BB ($2493)
UTG ($5613)
UTG+1 ($10793)
Hero ($8357.50)
MP2 ($567.50)
MP3 ($454)
CO ($2077)

Preflop: Hero is MP1 with , .
1 fold, UTG+1 raises to $80, Hero calls $80, 5 folds, BB calls $60.

Flop: ($250) , , (3 players)
BB checks, UTG+1 bets $160, Hero calls $160, BB folds.

Turn: ($570) (2 players)
UTG+1 bets $280, Hero raises to $780, UTG+1 calls $500.

River: ($2130) (2 players)
UTG+1 bets $1000, Hero folds.

Final Pot: $3130

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $20 BB (8 handed)

Hero ($6383)
UTG ($2077)
UTG+1 ($2231)
MP1 ($375.50)
MP2 ($2274)
CO ($720)
Button ($22540.25)
SB ($1220)

Preflop: Hero is BB with , .
UTG calls $20, 3 folds, CO calls $20, 1 fold, SB completes, Hero raises to $100, UTG calls $80, CO calls $80, SB folds.

Flop: ($320) , , (3 players)
Hero bets $220, UTG calls $220, CO folds.

Turn: ($760) (2 players)
Hero checks, UTG checks.

River: ($760) (2 players)
Hero bets $400, UTG raises to $1100, Hero folds.

Final Pot: $2260

hand #1 i'm gonna say your opponent has 56 suited for a straight.


hand #2 you have to be incredbily confident your opponent has a full house or quads. I'm leaning towards AQ and I would have called this river bet.

hand #3 I like the fold but not sure I like the river bet??

Hand 1: I'm guessing he has 78s spades. Why push the river? Why not check/call and keep the pot lower if possible. 56, 78, JJ and various other oddities have you beat so I would think you'd like to get to showdown as cheaply as possible.

Hand 2: I agree with Kenny. You folded to a 1/2 pot river bet when the 2nd queen came out? A tight aggressive pre flop raises so I'm putting him on AQs more so than 10's.

Hand 3: Once again, I agree with Kenny. I dont like betting this river with an unimproved KK. Maybe with a good read I'd value bet here but that happens rarely.

Couple quick thoughts before I head out..hand 1 I played it hard postflop because I felt that I was ahead the whole way and felt that I would need to get full value for a hand that was played very deceptively. In addition, this guy is EXTREMELY LAG as I said and if he had the made straight he would have moved in on the turn with so many cards to come that can kill action (and for some reason people always look him up so he does NOT slowplay period). Usually when he's just calling down like this I've found that he is either on a draw or playing a speculative hand (hint hint). Against 90% of opponents I would check the river but I felt that this was an exception. Based off this read, if you still feel that I should have checked the river than I would be interested in hearing the reasoning.

Hand 2 was again pretty opponent-dependent. Villian and I know each other somewhat well and I don't think he would take me lightly enough as to call my turn raise with one pair. Put yourself in his shoes for a second, he's bet the whole way and shown strength, and an obvious draw hits on the turn and he gets raised. How good are the chances I have the straight? Very. Good players tend not to put too much money in with one pair out of position with a good chance that they could be drawing dead. Right? Well in that case, that leaves us with QQ and TT as his most likely holdings, as well as 77. I was pretty sure he had a boat but my read isn't going to be right everytime there because he could potentially have AKss, KJss, etc. I am more interested in seeing if people think my odds were too good (better than 3:1) to fold. I didn't think his chances of bluffing were very high but as I said it's a pretty close decision I think.

Hand 3 I wanted to make it look like I had a missed AK but it didn't work out. I don't know what villian had and I don't know if I would ever get a call out of a worse hand assuming that he probably sees right through me and will be able to lay down worse hands. Still not sure about this one.

Keep the comments coming. And in the meantime, check out this beauty.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $20 BB (3 handed)

SB ($1479)
Hero ($3576.10)
Button ($2010)

Preflop: Hero is BB with , .
1 fold, SB raises to $40, Hero raises to $120, SB raises to $200, Hero calls $80.

Flop: ($400) , , (2 players)
SB bets $1279 (All-In), Hero calls $1279.

Turn: ($2958) (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: ($2958) (2 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: $2958

Results in white below:
SB has As 2s (flush, ace high).
Hero has Ac Qd (one pair, queens).
Outcome: SB wins $2958.

(Yes, people like this is what keeps me coming back to 10/20).

I put him on J8 for the first hand.

Al, it's because he makes good reads, and other players are willing to do the bluffing for him.

having watched both H@ll play on occasion, and genius play this game more frequently, i've seen some beyond intense pots - far more than in most games. A lot of the players at these levels are fearless, and aren't afraid to bluff off thousands of dollars.

There's also plenty of non-regulars who come into this game, and who seem to want to specificly bluff the regular players out of big pots. These guys aren't afraid to pick off bluffs, and strangely enough usually wind up being right.


this was earlier this week at the 10/20 game, i wasn't watching at the time, but discussed the hand history with genius and martine23 afterwards.


i think at the time the game was full, but was going back and forth between than and short handed.

Sorry about the HH being messed up, apparantly the converter doesn't like me today, so i've had to manually fix it.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $20 BB (9 handed)

($2883.40)
BB ($2000)
UTG ($2100)
UTG+1 ($540)
MP1 ($15590.10) <----Thetakeover
MP2 ($1654)
MP3 ($23926.80) <----- H@££INGGOL
CO ($2028)
Button ($2838)

Preflop: UTG limps, MP1 raises to $100, MP3 calls,CO calls, UTG calls.

Flop: ($430) , , (4 players)
UTG checks, MP1 bets $380, MP3 calls $380, CO folds, UTG folds.

Turn: ($1220) (2 players)
MP1 checks, MP3 bets $820, MP1 raises to $4000, MP3 calls $3180.

River: ($9220) (2 players)
MP1 bets $8000, MP3 raises to $19446.8, MP1 folds.

Final Pot: $36236.80

Actually the final size of hte pot when MP1 folded was $25187, leaving MP1 with $3110 of the $15590 he started the hand with.

I might also add that the two players in this hand are, IMO, 2 of the top 5 or 10, and arguably the top 2 at that, regular cash players on the site.

While this isn't exactly one of the infamous vegas games with hundreds of thousands of dollars at stake, lets keep in mind that the maximum buy in at this game is $2000 - and this bluff constituted over 6 max. buy ins. i don't care what game you're playing in, that's huge.


In other words smokin', there's plenty of ways to make money, provided that you aren't afraid to put yours in.


//Edit: for those of you who are curious, we put H@ll (correctly i might add) on a flopped set, of which we though 44 was the least likely (i'll also add that H@ll used up his entire time bank on the river before saying, and i quote ' can't fold' and pushed. he said later that he had a hard time pushing in for the last few thousand because he didn't have the nuts) My final guess was KK, which H@ll later confirmed to somone else.

While we had no way to find out what takeovers' hand was, we figured something like [7h], and made the river bet hoping H@ll had something like 65/A6 and would be unable to call the a monster bet. There's also a strong chance that in this big of a pot, H@ll might be forced to muck 44, fearing KK or 66, which take is clearly doing his best to represent.

Also, MG, as for H@ll's hand in the first one, normally i'd say it's [5d], but because it's against you, i wouldn't be suprisd to see anything from AJ down to JT. unfortunatly, 87 wouldn't suprise me either.

Hand two, i'm very much up in the air about.

AA and KK don't bet this river, this is too much of a scare card for them. So against this type of player that leavs QQ, TT, 77, 66, and AQ as the only possible hands. 66, imo, is the least possible of all of them. i'm gonna agree with your read that he's not likely to call a big raise there without a hand, even against someone laggy like you. like i said, AA and KK are ruled out on the river, though they're certainly possibiliities on the turn. if i was him, i'd still be more inclined to check AQ to you on this river and let you bluff at it.

That means this half pot bet is either a blocking bet (for AQ), or a value bet (for any of the other 4 possible hands).

i think against a tight aggressive player this fold is painful, but fine.

Hand 3 is a little too wild for my tastes, since i'll assume you were trying to check raise the turn. i'd rather see you bet the turn and fold to a raise, or check call the river here.

hand 4, your king of luckbox title is only on temporary suspension, but don't worry, you'll have your crown back soon.

Hope the expiriment went well again, and just remember, when you decide you hate poker and are quitting for good, i have the claim to your bankroll

Ive heard about this H@ssingol , or whatever the heck his name is. he is apparently building quite the reputation.

The funny thing is that I have quite a few hands with him at $100NL in an old database and he was nothing special at all. Hes obviously made some serious changes in both his playing style and the stakes hes playing.

ice, I'd really be interested to hear on hand 1 in the original post what quantity you'd use on the KK "power play."

With available stack depth of $2,451, all-in just seems to me a bit excessive with the total pot coming to you at $310. On the other hand, I view the $400 check-raise as much too passive, as it doesn't even give 2:1 on the call.

I kind of waver between somewhere in the $600 range (more like a "reasonable bet") or perhaps a little more. Maybe $800 wouldn't be too bad, as 1/3 of available stack depth. The one thing about making it truly all-in is that it ends any further action and forces an immediate "I'm ahead or I'm behind" decision from your opponent.

But I just don't see how anything but a made hand can really possibly call a checkraise to $800 here. I'd like to bet this situation in such a way that if I get a call, I'm quite confident that I'm beat and can really just lay down to any bet after that assuming a K doesn't fall. I don't know, maybe $600 is actually enough to achieve that goal.

Although a little different from ice's power play, another option might be to bet into the raiser, which in the context of my own play is much more consistent with what I'd do on a flopped set. Then, if you do get raised, you actually have all-in leverage. I in any case want JJ to be the only hand that is really capable of seeing past the flop (i.e., some fold equity even on AA). Yet another option here: "probe bet" then all-in to a raise...

Anyone have any strong feelings about how to play this?

There are people on another forum reporting that in the recent past theyve watched this guy drop 10K-20K in a short sitting on multiple occasions. He apparently also, uses the "PokerStars all in reload" over and over until he builds a 5 buy in stack or more so when you see him with 7 buys ins (which you will see all the time) that doesnt mean hes making a killing. I havent watched him for a long time, but like I said, I played him quite a bit last year. I just dont believe hes all that good.

Ais, I agree and wouldve check raised the flop a bit harder (maybe $750), but i disagree that when you get called you are beaten. From what Ive heard about the way this guy is playing, I would shove the rest in on the turn.