Up and Down, All Around

Ah yes the Cake Challenge. What a gnarled beast it is. I have built my swing tolerance back up pretty quickly, but that is largely because I have been swinging like an 8-year old on the first day of Summer vacation since this began. Adjusting to these downswings (and upswings) is a big part of success for this type of thing, but it ain't easy..

Let's look at some hands from my last session.

I think while we try to break down hands and put ourselves in other players seats, we often fall into the trap of expecting that player to act similarly to how we would. This is not always the case. I take a value line here because I don't think this guy has anything at all. I min-raise the turn to try to induce a call or bluff, and get the call. He checks the not too terrible river, but calls my value shove. You have to factor in the Random Donk Factor (TM) at these stakes still it would seem :)

Continuing along that theme, we have this little piece of work. Royal and I decided that given this guys stack size, he was just playing ATC and running really hot(?) Maybe he thought he had some soul read on me or something, not sure. The minbet->call on the river is classic.

I wanted to show this example as a great spot where overbetting the turn makes a lot of sense. This guy flats in the SB with AQo. (Again with the nitty behavior from the players at this level). He flops top pair, and does the most popular move at these stakes currently: the $.04 minbet lead-out. I raise him up and of course he just passively calls. The turn brings a 2nd club to go with the 2 spades on the flop. Now he weak-leads again, this time for $.16. This is a spot where on a different board I might just go for a value type raise. I don't want him folding here. But of note is that this is *not* a way ahead/way behind situation. He could have a whole lot of hands that have a reasonable amount of equity but that we are beating. Some examples: Any of the 2 flush draws, any Q, sometimes a J, KT, and 9T. All of the previous hands with the exception of a Q, would likely fold the river unimproved. That means that we will do well to put as much pressure on him as possible to give him the worst odds and get as much money as we can get in right now. Being a passive donk he is likely to just not pay attention to the amount and just do the old "i haz draw, i arr in" play. Anyway, great spot for a shove imo, keep your eye out for these.

This next hand is more for entertainment purposes, but it is sorta interesting too. We have 77. Imagine at home the sheer range of joy to distress one might feel here lol.

I hope that we all understand how important it is to play in position by now. This hand is a great example of one of the overlooked reasons why not to play OOP. I call a raise from the BB with AJo. I flop top pair with a ~good kicker, but I have no clue where Villain is at. I do the standard check to the pf raiser. He cbets $.20. I don't really feel great about raising here, as AK, AQ, AA, KK, 99 are all part of his range, even if his range is wider than this. The turn brings another scare card on two fronts. The flush comes in and its a big broadway filling type card (but also improves us to a gutshot..) I check-call again, but I am not in love with this spot. River is another Q, and I check. I still don't have a great idea where this guy is at, and find myself somewhat relieved when he checks behind. The point of this whole thing is that it's very difficult to extract value from OOP. I had a relatively strong starting hand and had a decent flop for it, but had to let this guy decide how much money I won this pot.

I wanted to post a small hand like this just to show where I pick up probably the majority of what I win at these levels. It does not show what I had here but I am not going to post it either. I had air, so put any two cards in your hand and see if you just would have folded that flop or not. Once this guy gave up, I stabbed and took down a reasonably sized pot. This is your reward for knowing that the flop is dry enough that it missed this guy the majority of the time. And after he checks the turn, it's just a white flag to run him over. Don't pass up opportunities like this.

Along the lines of the RDF (TM) hand above, this hand shows that you don't always know where you are at. I raise with TT from the cutoff, and get 2 callers. On a very dry flop, both check and I bet half pot. I would probably bet this amount with an Ace as well. TheCouch100 calls and other guy folds. I hit a great card for me on the turn, giving me a boat. Now I am hoping that he has an Ace and that he is willing to go to the mat with it. He checks, and I bet $1.12, not holding back now as this has become a question of "do you have an ace or not?". He calls. I found this strange at the time because I expected a check-raise from an Ace. I thought he might have a small Ace and be playing it weakly. The river is a K, and he checks again. Well I have signifinantly less than a pot bet behind, so I just shove in there. I am still hoping he is just playing an Ace passively. I was wrong.

This one again shows that RDF(TM) strikes often and it strikes hard. Don't be a victim. (Took a relatively sick beat here, but the Sklansky bucks are piling up) Same dude as the previous hand too fwiw.



Those are all the hands that I wanted to share. I hit my first heater of the Challenge last night and had a decent upswing. Being down though overall to start the session meant that it didn't exactly propel me to the stars, but it was nice nonetheless.

And the grind continues..