“I woke up early and took the first train to take me away from the city” -Charlotte Eriksson
Early in this case means before 10 am, and the first train means the first one with business class seats left:
So far my track record in a game with 72 aka seven-deuce aka worst starting hand in holdem & mississippi straddle is in the red, but Im relying on the fact that Ive only had one session of it and my skills didn’t realise yet. Anyways, today I took the train to play that game again and see how it goes. Buying into the seven-deuce additional bounty gives me an incredibly nice option of raising my preflop monsters into something ridiculous like 15-20BB as long as the table has good action going.
Even though I don’t have much of a track record in 72 mississippi holdem, what I DO have on my belt is plenty of hours played in this card room I’m headed to. Played low 4-figs of hours of PLO and NLHE there during several years, so it feels kind of the same when you arrive to any familiar place and just know how to do things there without having to adjust consciously too much. In this particular environment, I just know I’m in a good position to crush the game.
So the battle plan for today is:
[x] 10.00 am Wake up
[x] 10.15 am Listen to a poker podcast
[x] 11.00 – 13.00 pm Business stuff & pack your things & book a hotel n train
[x] 13.05 pm Breakfast smoothie
[in progress] 13.20-16.00 pm Travel & write a blog post
[ ] 16.10 pm Arrive to hotel
[ ] 16.20 pm Go for a run in the city center
[ ] 16.30 pm Sign-up to the 72 Mississippi game [Wearing your running gear lol]
[ ] 16.45 pm Cold shower & drying hair
[ ] 16.55 pm Walk & take your seat
[ ] 23.30 pm Last hand
[ ] = Profit ???
[ ] 23.45 pm Cashout & night life if other players going too
Let’s try to execute this in a clean manner. GL at the tables!
Dagen Efter Analysis
“Winter Is Coming” -House of Stark motto
I’m writing this post in the hotel lobby after waking just before noon and exiting my hotel room. The schedule I planned was quite accurate except for one box:
[x 13.20-16.00 pm Travel & write a blog post
[x] 16.10 pm Arrive to hotel
[x] 16.20 pm Go for a run in the city center
[x] 16.30 pm Sign-up to the 72 Mississippi game [Wearing your running gear lol]
[x] 16.45 pm Cold shower & drying hair
[x] 16.55 pm Walk & take your seat
[x] 20.00pm Dinner
[x] 23.45 pm Last hand
[ ] = Profit ???
[x] 23.45 pm Cashout
[x] 23.55-04.30am Karaoke & Dance Floor
So what happened exactly? Let’s just say that you can always win G-bucks or Sklanskys if you’re one of the best players at the table, but you don’t always win real bucks. So yeah, that’s what basically happened. The game wasn’t even 27 or mississippi, but that didn’t slow things down much. I feel exhausted for having played since Thursday last week in pretty much the wildest Holdem games I’ve ever sat in and having barely broken even, but that’s often the reality you gotta deal with if you play poker. Everyone is eventually going to run way worse than they thought is possible, and this is not even close to what could have gone down.
To be honest, running 150 buy-ins under ev online in one year didn’t feel this overwhelming, as you could get rakeback and bonuses to cover the losses. In live games, you get nothing, nada, zero, except more experience of EV not being realised when you hit the front gates of abyss (as DGAF likes to call it). Entering and staying in the abyss is another thing though, I’m not quite there yet, and it’s out of my control anyways.
Nowadays I think the winner of the hand is decided before the hand even starts, and it’s just a (somewhat) challenging simulation you’ve gotta run through. Everything between busto and robusto can be experienced with various types of emotions, mostly depending on your current direction i.e. if you’re going up or down – basically it’s just all noise, as are all the monthly and yearly results too. Your goal should be to play your best and stay in the game, and EVENTUALLY you will get lucky at some point. For the entrepreneurial minds of you, the same principle should apply to business too.
Let’s get to the HH’s:
Hand number 1: The Kid Who Does (Not) Bet With Garbage
Starting point: Villain 1 has seen hero play solid whole evening, and Villain 2 doesn’t care much until the bets become significant. It’s time to play some deepstack poker with +300bb eff stacks.
Hero HJ: 7♥ 6♥
Villain 1 raises to 6, Villain 2 raises 28, UTG+3 cold calls, Hero calls, BB calls, Villain 1 calls
Flop: J♠ 6♦ 3♥
Checks to Villain 2 who bets 82, UTG+3 folds, Hero calls, BB folds, Villain 1 calls
Turn: 5♥
Checks to Hero, Hero takes a Phil Helmuth posture and bets 320, Villain 1 seems reluctant to let his hand go but probably must think he’s beaten and folds, Villain 2 says he’s got outs and calls.
River: 8♣
Villain 2 checks, Hero is in awkward position with around 100bb left and decides to check as value betting here would be REALLY thin. Hero scoops the pot against 7♣ 3♦ .
Even though we’re quite sure our pair of sixes is good here like +80% of the time, it’s really hard to get called by a 5x or a 3x that had some kind of draw to call the turn as we block the hearts and the gutshot. Any draw containing 8x beats us now, and we also lose to 6x with better kicker.
We win a few medium pots, and suddenly have a good stack to play with:
Hand number 2: The Rounders Moment
Starting point: Same villains as in the previous hands, the table will close soon. Villain 2 has 500bb, Hero has 750BB, Villain 1 has +1000BB
Hero UTG+1: K♠ K♣
Hero raises to 12, UTG+2 calls, Villain 2 raises to 72, Villain 1 raises to 300 from SB, Hero calls, Villain 2 calls
Flop: J♠ T♠ 9♣
Villain 1 bets 750, Hero raises all-in to 1.2k, Villain 2 calls, Villain 1 snap calls. Hero tables KK and asks if Villain 1 has Aces – the answer is no.
Turn: A♦
Hero asks if Villain 1 hit that one. The answer is yes.
River: 4♣
Villain 1 scoops the pot with A♠ 4♠
After this Hero loses one more flip with A♠ J♦ against A♠ T♣ preflop. I wonder did I do something wrong here?
Well, in some distant future where I have a series of rungood sessions this session will be just a funny memory. To be continued…
