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Hand History Review

Ive decided to start to doing a " hand of the day". Its exactly what it sounds like. Ill be picking an interesting hand that I feel is worthy of some good discussion. I encourage people to respond and let me know their thoughts on the hand as well. Also, if you have a specific scenario or hand you would like to go over, just post it in the comments and Ill post it and analyze.

This first hand is one i played the other day on True Poker
The game is 25 nl 6 max cash. Villian is a super aggro loose fish, 3 betting a lot and bluffing pots.

Preflop

Flop

Im dealt AKo in the BB. JMG (villian) opens for 3x to .75. We get 2 flats as is usually the case at 25nl and were left to act. I choose to raise pretty large in this spot for 3 reasons. First is that I dont want everyone calling. AK oop is tough to play against 3 other opponents. So by raising large Im forcing the other players to fold weak hands. Yes we want weaker hands in against us but not 3.

Second reason is, I know the villian will call a large raise with any random cards possibly even 4 bet since my large raise looks like a squeeze. And I have been 4 bet by this guy before so the dynamic is there.

The third reason is that i am out of position and I want to set up a pot that is large so that when i do hit I can easily get stacks in.

The inevetible 4 bet

 

So our plan works and villian does 4 bet small. I have 2 choices, shove or call. Folding is not an option. I elect to call because villians range is so heavily weighted towards air in this spot. I dont rememer stats exactly, but I know his 3 bet 4 bet etc stats were very high.
I could 5 bet real small and just shove any flop but thats a little too fancy here imo.

So I flat his 4 bet and look to hit a flop. I should not that I am prepared to go with A high in this spot as I stated villian is aggressive and loose. Not good aggressive but monkey aggressive. Spewtard aggressive, fishy. I think you get the point.

The flop

With SPR (stack to pot ratio) already low, we need to be ready to get it in. Except in this special case. When villian bets large a standard play is to just get it in with such a small stack left behind. In this case we know our opponent is betting air a huge portion of the time and when we shove hes just folding. We have TPTK and as far as im concerned is the nuts in this spot. Im never folding regardless of what comes on the turn or river.

I elect to just flat and let him spew again on the turn. Again, regardless of what comes I am calling any bet and NEVER folding. This type of player does not realize I am never folding and will continue to bet a good portion of the time.

The turn

Again our goal is achieved and villian shoves. We obviously call and look to sweat the river.

The results

We can see we get unlucky and our opponent spikes the 3 outer on the river. But as poker players we cant be results oriented. We made all right plays and over the long run this will net us a huge profit. Against most opponents we would play this hand alot different. I picked this hand because we need to recognize who our opponent is and act accordingly. Most of us get stuck in robot mode and play every hand the same way regardless of who we are playing against. Sure you may win some of the time, but in the ever changing game of poker where the games are getting tougher all the time. We need to maximize our winnings on every hand.

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Think Outside the Box

Ive started playing chess alot recently as seen by my link to challenge me at chess. Ive always loved the game but was never that good at it. I understood where the little knight and castle move etc, (I actually know there names) but never understood even basic strategy.

So I started playing at a little site online for free and grew to enjoy it. I also noticed that some professional poker players either played chess for fun and were quite good or actually used to hustle the game for cash. Imagine if "Color of Money" was based on a chess hustler rather a pool shark.Picture Tom Cruise and Paul Newman playing a mean spirited game of rooks and pawns in the park of New York. Actually might not be a bad plot.

My point is that I began to notice a similarity between poker and chess. Both involve out thinking your opponent. And perhaps more importantly thinking a few steps ahead. When playing a poker hand, we generally like to have  a plan on how we play every street. As with both games circumstances can changed based on many factors. This makes us change our plan and react accordingly.

I feel that playing chess has helped in my decision making process. I normally dont play a full match. what I mean is that the games are timed and i almost always play with a 5 minute time limit. I do this to practice my quick decision making. with only 5 minutes to complete a whole game, we need to formulate a strategy and then adapt very quickly to how our opponents react to our moves. Sometimes i will go cracked out and play 1 or 2 minute games but I feel this is just pointless as each player is usually only playing to not time out.

We can see that both games are very similar as far as the mental side goes. Even the game actions themselves are quite the same. When trying to improve our own game we often just go over our losing hands for the day and see what we did wrong. Sometimes we look at our stats in HEM, but even this isnt enough. We constantly need to adapt and react. On the felt and off. Look for other ways to improve and think outside the box.