Let me know if my thoughts are correct on this session

This is my first post on the twoplustwo.

Let me introduce myself, I have only been playing poker since the summer of 2004, Ive read tons of books and mostly played in NL, a few tournaments and have recently started working on my limit game.

I feel that results wise Ive been doing very well at either, but my hand sample isnt large enough yet that you can look at anything and say "ya this guy knows what he's doing". Mainly I play 1/2, 2/4, or sometimes 3/6 limit and at some point if I have enough bankroll will wonder if Im good enough to try a higher level.

Im also kind of beyond posting "how would you play this?" hands. I think Im at the point now where I am trying to evaluate my play in general and find leaks. Which is why what I would like to do is post a link to the following session (105 hands) and if someone is curious maybe they can let me know if my thoughts on it are correct.

This session is somewhat significant to me because it's one where I lost money (not a ton though) but I felt like I played almost every hand perfectly. (if I ever feel Im playing perfectly it's probally the best time to have someone else take a look at it) Otherwise I felt that this was just a typical session where I played well but the varience just took a slight downswing, if someone else can see a diffrent story in it I would be curious to see their point of view:

http://www.robotennis.com/pty2-4-loss.txt

Thanks ahead of time to anyone who has the time to look at this. You probally need PokerTracker I imagine to be able to do it.

[crunchy1]

I only looked through a few of the first hands you had. I saw you call down with bottom pair (A3s). A few hands later you didn't raise PF after 1 EP limper with ATs.

I need to go soon so I stopped reading there. You're definitely not playing perfectly. You're definitely not beyond posting "how would you play this?" hands.

Lucky you - you're in the right place to learn.

Good luck!!

Thanks for looking at it crunchy.

The ATs had makes me realize that one of the flaws in my game is that I probally misplay Axs hands. I dont raise them when I should, and I probally overplay the lower ones.

This is what I was thinking as far as the A3s hand.

On the flop I had 5 outs, but with only getting 5 to 1 on my money that probally wasnt a great call. I think I am geting some degree of implied odds if I hit but I was in bad position to make that call since the other two guys could of raised. (just as bad though that they folded which made it really not worth it)

On the turn though I gained 4 more outs. and I think my original 5 are still good because I actually think he has top pair. I think I can make an reasonable call here, cant I?

Looks like we checked the river down, if he would of bet that I would of folded.

[TripleH68]

Looks like you were a little cold on starting cards,
and several marginal hands hit you in EP which always sucks.

Just a few hands I noticed were interesting working backwards from the end of the session...

-Your QQ gets 3-bet preflop. All undercards fall postflop and no more bets go in? Villain has AJo. ?

-TJ flops OESD, well played, draw hits and you check-raise the turn. Excellent. But when the board pairs on the turn why did you raise and call a 3-bet?

-Other than those two there were just a couple limps I would question. One A7s in LP with one limper ahead of you. One KJo in EP?

Keep at it and thanks for the post.

QQ Hand - He was a calling station that played over 60% of all his hands and usually took them down to the showdown.

My strategy against this is to keep the pot small if I dont feel I have a super hand (see the showdown for as cheap as possible), and to pump the hell out of it if I have two pair or better.

If this is the correct strategy, perhaps I misvalued my hand in this situation.

The JT hand was also played against one of these guys (who played very loose and wild). So I have to believe that just because he bet it didnt mean anything to me necessarily so I was still going to raise for value. Then when I was re-raised, I called because again he's an idiot and I think I was getting a good deal on my money if he didnt hit the boat.

So do you think I should 3 bet A7s after a limper? Im not sure if that's a matter of me misvaluing those hands, or perhaps I have a bad habit of limping too often behind the other limpers? I usually never open limp into a pot, but I notice I limp behind other limpers all the time especially in 2/4 and below.

This is sort of what I meant by areas where I am habitually playing in a matter that is not profitable. I understand that I am going to make poor decisions here and there, but it's even more important to me to find the more general things where Im probally making the same sort of mistakes because it's part of my general strategy.

[TripleH68]

[ QUOTE ]
QQ Hand - He was a calling station that played over 60% of all his hands and usually took them down to the showdown.

My strategy against this is to keep the pot small if I dont feel I have a super hand (see the showdown for as cheap as possible), and to pump the hell out of it if I have two pair or better.

If this is the correct strategy, perhaps I misvalued my hand in this situation.

[/ QUOTE ]

You should consider capping preflop. Then you have to bet this hand. It was nice that you still won the pot, but you gave up profit with the best hand and gave villain infinite odds to draw out on you. Atrocious.

[ QUOTE ]
The JT hand was also played against one of these guys (who played very loose and wild). So I have to believe that just because he bet it didnt mean anything to me necessarily so I was still going to raise for value. Then when I was re-raised, I called because again he's an idiot and I think I was getting a good deal on my money if he didnt hit the boat.

[/ QUOTE ]

In my experience idiots don't pull many moves on the river when you have been so aggressive earlier in the hand. I just don't think you can raise the river if you can't fold to a 3-bet. As you are seeing the 2bb takes a lot of work to make up.

[ QUOTE ]
So do you think I should 3 bet A7s after a limper? Im not sure if that's a matter of me misvaluing those hands, or perhaps I have a bad habit of limping too often behind the other limpers? I usually never open limp into a pot, but I notice I limp behind other limpers all the time especially in 2/4 and below.

This is sort of what I meant by areas where I am habitually playing in a matter that is not profitable. I understand that I am going to make poor decisions here and there, but it's even more important to me to find the more general things where Im probally making the same sort of mistakes because it's part of my general strategy.

[/ QUOTE ]

Your comments here lead me to believe you are not yet grasping the game/some would say playing weak. Say you hold A7s in the CO. One early limper and it is on you??? What should you do?

Limp - If button folds you might be four handed without much of a read on the blinds. Yuck. Plus the button may raise and it comes back to you three of four handed for two bets. Yuck.

Raise - You may get it heads up or at least three handed. You may get the button or SB to fold hands like A9,AT,AJ,KQ,KJ. Wouldn't that be nice. Then when a K hits the flop you have fold equity versus the EP limper.

Just give it some thought. Think about these situations and what it means to be the aggressor in the right situations.

Keep at it and have fun. Respond to some hands.

That makes sense. I guess I was playing weak in that regard. I never really thought about the blinds. If Im LP and I have to open I usually raise because I dont want the blinds to see a cheap/free flop so Im not sure why I didnt think of it in other situations when Im limping.

It seems kind of dumb now that Im always willing to open raise with all kinds of hands because I usually didnt like open limping, but I kept limping behind with probally much weaker hands behind the other limpers.

I didnt like open limping because I was afraid of getting a LP raiser. Yet when Im in LP and I get a limper, I limp behind. So would you say that's kind of part of what's screwed up in this picture?

I guess I was treating Axs like a drawing hand, even though I could hit the Ace and been in all kinds of trouble.

But even if it's just a drawing hand (like a small pair), it's probally not too bad to raise in LP, right? I kept trying to sneak in for one bet which might of been bad because I probally want the pot bigger anyway in case I hit my big draw. (besides the other benefits of raising)

So anyways it seems like rather than limp in most of the time I need to decide whether to take the aggressive approach if the situation calls for it, or whether to fold?

(Im sure sometimes you would limp along, but if I never did, would anyone even make a note of it?)

I tryed to play this way today (raise more limpers from the CO and the Button) with a few hands that I would of normally limped with, and it seemed to work out a lot better.

What got me is a lot of the people that limp are the weaker players and because I was just limping along I rarely got to isolate them. Id much rather go one on one with them because I want a shot at taking their money before someone else does.

[jskills]

I didn't review hand by hand.

Some of the hands Crunchy pointed out to you are obviously issues.

But in terms of the big losses, it appears you lost a decent amount after flopping a set and losing to a runner runner straight (4.5 BB) and another hand where you hit your OESD on the turn and the board paired on the river (7.5 BB). Since your entire loss was about 10 BB, you can look at these two suckouts as somewhat of a comfort, since without them alone, you'd have turned a profit. Suckouts are part of poker, but the times there are more than there "should" be, it is going to cost you, regardless of how well you play.


Suckouts happen. Usually they account for about 20-25% of your losses. If you're at the 20% threshold, you're usually going to find you're ahead. The closer you get to 25% (or above), the harder it is going to be for you to actually turn a profit. The rest of your losses is just either (1) you playing good hands and other people playing better ones or (2) you making mistakes. So focus on minimizing your mistakes the best you can and don't let the suckouts mess with your mind.

I started tracking my losses hand by hand after each session this way, and it has proved benificial in terms of recognizing mistakes and keeping my sanity.


Another tool you can use to evaluate your play is PokerGrader. Here is a link to the review of the session you posted:


Report Card

It is by no means perfect, but I do like to look at the "luck factor" it displays, since it will often assure you that a particular session was indeed full of bad luck river cards or on the other hand it will tell you when you were getting lucky too. The report card grade part I wouldn't worry too much about. It's interesting though ...

Also remember not to worry too much about individual sessions. They are psychologically benificial when you do have a winning one sometimes, but in the grand scheme of things, it's just one session.

Good luck.

Wow, that PokerGrader site is awesome. Thanks.

I decided to run my entire sample from Party 2/4 limit(4488 hands), and this is my results:

Nuevo99ReportCard

Seemed a bit more complete although it's still a small sample. Some of the things it suggests actually are things that I suspect that are wrong (or someone pointed it out), such as not value betting the river enough, or not preflop raising enough.