A few hands from a losing player

[SayGN]

A LITTLE HISTORY:

I'm barely a winning player at 1/2, but I managed to bonus whore my way from a bankroll of $9 to just over $1,200 in the last 5 months...I have improved my game over the last few months and I've gone from being a losing player to a winning 1/2 player.

A MONTH AGO
I find myself somewhat bankrolled to take a stab at 2/4. I would prefer to stay at 1/2, but since most of my poker income comes from bonuses, 2/4 is a far more efficient method of clearing the monthly bonuses at the 4 cryptologic sites where the pot needs to be $20 in order for it to count as a raked hand.

PRESENT:
I've played 3,122 hands at 2/4 and am down ($421.74), moving at a clip of (-3.38)BB/100. I know that 3k hands is a small sample size, but I also know that my play has been horrendous at times and that a decent player would be turning a profit with the exact same 3,122 hands that I was dealt. I made $380 in bonuses over the course of these hands, so I have a little bit of room to work with and experiment at without going broke in the next 6k hands if these losing ways keep up.

I'm going to post a few hands, and if anyone thinks posting some PT screen shots of my statistics for this relatively small sample size is worth it, just tell me and I will do that as well.


Hand 1:
2/4 8-handed

UTG: folds
UTG+1: folds
MP1: folds
MP2: folds
HERO (CO) : raises $4 With A/images/graemlins/club.gif 9 /images/graemlins/diamond.gif
Button: folds
Villain (SB) 26/11/(-6)/AF1.05 over 266 hands: calls $3
BB: folds

----- FLOP ----- [4 /images/graemlins/club.gif 8 /images/graemlins/club.gif 2 /images/graemlins/club.gif]
Villain: checks
Hero: bets $2
Villain: calls $2

----- TURN ----- [4 /images/graemlins/club.gif 8 /images/graemlins/club.gif 2 /images/graemlins/club.gif][A /images/graemlins/heart.gif]
Villain: checks
Hero: bets $4
Villain : raises $8
Hero: raises $8
Villain: raises $8
Hero: calls $4
----- RIVER ----- [4 /images/graemlins/club.gif 8 /images/graemlins/club.gif 2 /images/graemlins/club.gif][A /images/graemlins/heart.gif][7 /images/graemlins/heart.gif]
Villain: bets $4
Hero: calls $4


HAND 2: I ALWAYS DO THIS!! I know aggression is the way to go, but I'm obviously doing something wrong because I'm losing money doing it this way.

UTG: folds
UTG+1: folds
MP1: folds
Hero (MP2): raises $4 With A /images/graemlins/diamond.gif J /images/graemlins/club.gif
Villain (MP3) 21/13/15/AF 2.2 over 67 hands: raises $6
CO: folds
Button: folds
SB: folds
BB: folds
Hero: calls $2
----- FLOP ----- [Q /images/graemlins/club.gif K /images/graemlins/heart.gif 4 /images/graemlins/heart.gif]
Hero: bets $2
Villain: calls $2
----- TURN ----- [Q /images/graemlins/club.gif K /images/graemlins/heart.gif 4 /images/graemlins/heart.gif][6 /images/graemlins/club.gif]
Hero: bets $4
Villain: calls $4
----- RIVER ----- [Q /images/graemlins/club.gif K /images/graemlins/heart.gif 4 /images/graemlins/heart.gif][6 /images/graemlins/club.gif][9 /images/graemlins/spade.gif]
Hero: bets $4
Villain: raises $8
Hero: ??

This is by far my most common way of losing lots of money. When I get to a flop heads up I just seem to dump money to people.

The second hand is especially a concern of mine...I don't know what to do in so many situations where I'm heads up and for a loss as to what the other guy has. Any advice would be helpful. I'll probably post more hands in the coming week because I'm tired of sucking at poker and keeping my head above water with bonuses.

[imported_leader]

Hand one: just call his turn c/r and call the river UI. 3-bet isn't way one of line, but getting capped sux so just call.
Hand two: This is not a situation to take a shot at the pot. You have enough in pot and implied odds to see a turn. So just c/c and fold a non A, non T turn. The way you played it do you really need to ask what to do on the river?

[Pog0]

hand 1, 3-betting isn't too bad, if it's bad at all. But calling is probably the way to go (on the turn).

hand 2, I don't see how an ace can really be a good card for us here.

Giving our opponent TT+, AQ+, we have 7 outs vs JJ, and 4 vs everything else, and we're ahead of TT which is unlikely and unfortunate because 2 of the cards that we really want to come are gone (although more valuable considering the action you'll receive).

However with the ace, by hitting that on the turn, we're still usually losing, and calling down with that will probably just lose us more money.

I'd peel the flop to hit the straight, c/r the turn and lead the river if it comes and your implied odds there make up for your lacking pot odds.

I'd like to hear your thought process on donking (betting instead of checking to the most recent aggressor) the flop and betting every street from there on out.

[TripleH68]

Hand 1: An ace falls and villain check-raises the turn. 3-betting here stinks. You have top pair and plenty of outs with the nut flush draw. If you are behind you can't fold the turn and will be spewing chips.

Hand 2: Put yourself in the shoes of the villain and tell me what preflop hand hero did not cap has hit him on this flop? Also can you get villain to fold JJ,TT or 99?

Aggressive play gets the money, but you must be able to slow down/let go sometimes.

[cpk]

Hand #1, you went a little nuts on the turn. He has a low AF--he probably has a flush, you should call the turn and hope to suck out. You can almost fold the river--it's borderline. With a higher AF I'd see a clear call here, but I think this player would be afraid to raise without the flush.

Hand #2, Think about what hands he can have. If he reraises with suited broadway, AK, AQ, KQ, AA-77 that is 8% of remaining hands and I think that is a bit too generous. Of the 108 hands he might have, you are ahead when he has exactly JTs, or under 3% of the time. Knowing this, why are you betting?

Narrowing his holdings like this means that your ace and jack outs are discounted rather sharply. I'd say about 2 outs for the lot. The four tens are sure outs, so you have about 6 outs. That means you need about 6.67:1. You get about 6.25:1 implied on the turn (assuming I can count) so you know you can peel one off but not two.

This kind of analysis is hard to do at the table, but I find if you work it out in advance for common situations you gain a lot of insight about what to do. Go through your hand histories looking for hands that trouble you and reconstruct your opponent's possible holdings based upon percentages--it'll be eyeopening.

[cpk]

I got to thinking, because I'm bored. . .

The pot is 6.5 SB. I've assumed that opponent has a hand they might fold about 1/4 of the time (hands like JJ-77). Say opponent folds half the time when you bet out and he holds one of these hands. Assume you lose 2 bets 90% of time when the maneuver fails, but win a pot of 11.5 SB the other 10% of the time.


Succeeds: .5 * .25 = .125 * 6.5 = 0.8125
Fails and lose: .9 * .875 = .7875 * -2 = -1.575
Fails and win: .1 * .875 = .0875 * 11.5 = 1.006

EV: 0.2435

I've probably made some bad assumptions as to how often the villain will fold, but betting out on the flop might not be all that awful (because you won't even lose 2 bets all the time). The key is determining how often this maneuver works. That is anyone's guess.

[hobbsmann]

Hand 1 I probably call the c/r on the turn and look to river a club where I would then get in two bets. I don't think the turn 3-bet is horrible, but when it gets capped you can fold the river UI.

Hand 2: wft? check/call the flop, check/fold the turn UI and move onto the next the hand. The way the hand played out the river fold to his raise is very easy.

[krimson]

Hand 1, call c/r and call river u/i.
Hand 2, this is pure spewage. Once this TAG'ish player 3-bets you pre-flop and the board has KQ in it, you're screwed. Make a slightly loose c/c on the flop, hoping for a straight or an ace. c/f the turn u/i.

[ QUOTE ]
Hand 1, call c/r and call river u/i.
Hand 2, this is pure spewage. Once this TAG'ish player 3-bets you pre-flop and the board has KQ in it, you're screwed. Make a slightly loose c/c on the flop, hoping for a straight or an ace. c/f the turn u/i.

[/ QUOTE ]

TAG didn't three bet preflop he cold called.

[SayGN]

thanks for all the responses so far guys. I did of course fold to the river raise in hand 2. Your comments have given me alot to think about, and I plan to seriously analyze my game. Greatly appreciated.

[cpk]

It's not slightly loose to c/c the flop. You have 7.5 bets immediate and you will get between 4-6 more if you get there. That's 11.5-12.5:1, clearly +EV.

[jskills]

Hand 1 is ok for the most part. You may not want to 3-bet the turn though. Getting it capped like that screams made flush or two pair.

Hand 2 is kind of awful on all streets except preflop which is standard. You need to check / call the flop. He raised you preflop, why are you leading the flop with no clean outs except a gutshot? And you can check / fold on the turn. You're drawing to 4 outs in all likelihood as you're probably up against AK, KK, QQ, or KQs.

It's easy to aggro your way through the lower limits for sure. Learning aggression at the proper times and getting out of hands (especially before the turn) at the right times is essential when moving up.