Mixing it up, and some hand review.

Played some more PLO8 and took a few mini shots at the next level up over the last few days..

The play at the .25-.50 tables I have been at (2 total) as been pretty consistent with the play at .10-.20. One exception is the the players seem a little more aggressive, they bet more. They also seem to be a bit more "refined", where they will bet 3/4 pot instead of just hitting the pot button etc. I did feel comfortable though, even given the stakes in relation to my roll.

PLO8 has been quite an adventure. I am playing the 6 handed tables, but I think I am going to switch to full ring. In 6 handed NLHE, I know what hand strengths are what, and how to adjust pretty well. But in PLO8 I am essentially nut peddling when I have to be pushing smaller edges; something I am not good at yet. So I think I will switch over to full ring next time and continue my learning process. I will say its really nice to get in more hands when you are learning though.

Speaking of hands:

In this PLO8 hand I flop the straight flush wheel. This is cool.

This hand happened during one of my "shots" at .25-.50. Villain had the Ac8c and hit the nut flush on the river. I am glad I played this as aggressively as I did, because I don't think he had me on a set based on my action. I check raised the flop on him, and then led for ~80% of the pot on the turn. I think he though I had a big Q or something.. Anyway, being aggressive made sure I doubled up when the gin card hit, and I also charged him quite a bit to see the river in case it didn't.

I decided to get cute on this pretty harmless flop. I thought the J was a great card for me, but it wasn't and I paid off the short stack as quick as I could.

This sorta sucked against a short stack. I guess I am glad it wasn't a bigger stack..

This dude played his KK very strangely. But what about how I played my hand? Did I need to fire the second shell? And if I did, did it need to be so big? I thought at the time that I had 2 live overs probably and of course the nut flush draw. Thoughts on this one would be appreciated.

I had KQ on this one. At the time it felt like a bigger laydown than it looks here..

This one just sort of developed. I was calling ballinn's bet no matter what. He was tilting really hard and just spewing chips. Then a half stack behind just calls. Hmmm. This makes my decision that much harder, as he has to have a hand he likes quite a bit in order to call. But here is the catch, yes, I did bring it in for a normal raise, but that doesn't mean I am calling 7.00. Volare knows this, and he also knows that ballinn is spewing. I think he just figured that he was good against ballin, and that I would go away. When I shoved, he only had ~3.00 more to call off, but he probably wasn't happy about it. It's not often that two opponents essentially have only 5 outs against you preflop.

On this hand I sorta chickened out on the river, and just checked. Villain had KQ0. :/

I finesse the living shit out of this guy. (did that sound gay?) I bring it in for a pot raise preflop. He minraises me. Even though it gives up a lot about the strength of my hand, I 4 bet. I keep it pretty small though, I am not trying to scare him out of the pot, I am just trying to commit him. I feel pretty comfortable on the flop, and frankly, I am not folding in any case. He checks to me, and I figure I had better let him hang himself, as he can't really call anything if he has whiffed the flop. He checks again on the turn, and I am not waiting any longer. I jam the flop and he puts in the last of it.

I think I should have value bet the river here, even though I forget what he had. I think I was going to just check-call.

This fucking hand sucks. And it's what I am talking about when I bitch about bad timing for my beats. I maintain that I take a very normal amount of beats(which of course feels like WAY too many), but they have been happening at terrible times. Like this one. I RR preflop with my AQ. I get flat called and flop a Q. I lead hard at the flop, and I really felt he was just trying to take the pot away as I had seem him make these big moves at pots earlier at the session. I make the call but he hits his gutshot, bummer.