July Review

Barring a disaster in the next few days July was a really strong month. As I mentioned in last week’s blog I have been running super-hot in tournaments on PKR, with profits of around $8,800 this month. I can’t expect to replicate that every month of course but it’s definitely made me realise the potential benefits of adding more MTTs to my weekly schedule rather than just dismissing them off-hand while I 9-table the cash games.

I do wish that PKR had a few higher buy-in tournaments though, as it’s sometimes hard to get motivated to play MTTs where you must finish in the top two spots to get a prize over $1k. I guess that’s just a common downside of playing mid-stakes cash games where you’ll regularly have $800+ pots every hour. However, the fields are always much weaker in an MTT than at a $2/$4 cash table so it just about evens out in terms of EV and hourly rate etc. The other bonus of tournaments is that you instantly get more exposure. I’ve had more people on PKR just this month add me as a friend or now consider me a good player for doing well in a few tourneys than being a winning cash player for over two years. I certainly consider cash games the more skilful variant but, still, it’s nice to get any form of acclaim – even if it is just from the PKR Forum! Hopefully my performances this month will get me nominated for MTT Player of the Month too – I’m planning to win another tournament this weekend so that they can’t possibly leave me out…

Cash Games

I haven’t got as much volume in this month as I’d like but my results have still been quite good. Here’s the graph, and as you’ll see, I actually ran BELOW EV for once! 

Around $5k profit is solid for just 31,000 hands (in June I played over 70,000 hands by contrast) and it’d be much improved if I hadn’t lost a ton of money every time I played PLO in July. I’m currently just playing Hold’em to retain my sanity.

It’s hard to believe that my monthly profit in July is around seven month’s salary in my old job at PokerPlayer magazine. I realise how lucky I am to have a job which I love doing and – when it’s going good – pays really well. However, I know that this might not last forever so I’m going to try and make the most of it right now by putting in a ton of hours at the table, working hard on my game and not taking it for granted. That’s why I’ve made sure to keep writing as much content as possible for Stacked and PokerPlayer - I want my options to always be open if poker ever falls through.

Incidentally, my first regular column, titled The Daily Grind, is featured inside PokerPlayer this month. It’s a great honour to have come full circle in working for them, initially just as an ‘Online Writer’ three years ago to having a regular column now – thanks to Alun Bowden for the opportunity.

Hands

1)
Seat 1: zisiszamuck (Dealer) ($657.60)

Seat 2: IJoker (SB $2) ($1,170.73)

Seat 3: MrStarch (BB $4)  ($487)
Seat 4: japete ($893.76)
Seat 5: Rhymenoceros ($709.03)
Seat 6: WongaMan ($716)

Dealt to MrStarch

Preflop: (Pot: $6)

FOLD japete
FOLD Rhymenoceros
RAISE WongaMan, to $12
CALL zisiszamuck, $12
FOLD IJoker
CALL MrStarch, $8

First of all, this is a pretty tough lineup for a PKR $400NL game. The only reason why I was playing here is that I had direct position on IJoker who seems to be a massive fish. Flatting Wonga's raise with 66 from the BB is pretty standard and obviously I'm looking to flop a set or get some kind of cool flop that I can try and steal the pot from.

Flop: (Pot: $38)

BET MrStarch, $26
CALL WongaMan, $26
CALL zisiszamuck, $26

I've been experimenting with donking out a lot more in cash games and thought this was an interesting spot to try and take it down quite cheaply. Wonga's hand is often just going to be two overcards, and while zisiszamuck's range is considerably wider he is also going to have a load of QJ, 33 type hands that will fold to a donk bet. The hand being three-way also makes it harder for Wonga to raise me as he has to worry a little about the player acting behind, as well as me. Even with an overpair I think he'll sometimes flat this bet. As I get called in both spots I plan on just giving up on a lot of turns.

Turn: (Pot: $116)

CHECK MrStarch
BET WongaMan, $82
FOLD zisiszamuck
RAISE MrStarch, to $225
FOLD WongaMan
MrStarch wins the pot of $420

Besides another 6 this is the best possible turn card for my hand. Leading out would be fine and the usual line to take but I felt a check-raise gives me the best possible chance to get Wonga to fold. It also looks like I have a hand better than one pair almost always. The only downside is that I commit myself to the pot and would have had to call off the remaining $200 or so if Wonga decides to jam. Still, I think this hand was played quite non-standard and creatively and I like my line.

2) It's quite possible I got owned - as usual - by Muzone in this hand.

Seat 1: MrStarch ($666.10)

Seat 2: BrotherMuzone17 (Dealer) ($706.37)

Seat 4: Crusader33 (SB $2) ($897.56)
Seat 5: robburgundy (BB $4) ($451)

Seat 6: LtViper ($416.44)

Dealt to MrStarch

Preflop: (Pot: $6)

RAISE MrStarch, to $12
RAISE BrotherMuzone17, to $40
FOLD Crusader33
FOLD LtViper
RAISE MrStarch, to $97
CALL BrotherMuzone17, $69

I open QQ from the cut-off and Muzone 3-bets me from the button, as he does about 50% of the time. The thing that makes this hand tricky is that our stacks are at about 170BBs deep. Despite that, I'm still more than happy to get QQ all-in preflop against Muzone. While he'll show up with AA and KK a fair amount of the time, he's also prone to jamming worse hands, obviously AK and occasionally a big bluff.

However, because we are deep he can flat my 4-bet in position with a much wider range than would ever be profitable if we were just 100BBs deep. In fact, at 100BBs deep I don't think there would be a single hand that Muzone would flat a 4-bet with. But a little deeper here he knows he can put me in some torturous spots later on in the hand. Most likely his range will be TT, JJ, AQ, smaller pairs and suited connectors but, really, he could have just about anything except AA, KK, QQ and AK.

Flop: (Pot: $212)

BET MrStarch, $130
CALL BrotherMuzone17, $130

Good flop for my hand and a standard c-bet. I'm still happy to call if off at this point obviously.

Turn: (Pot: $472)

CHECK MrStarch
BET BrotherMuzone17, $467.37
FOLD MrStarch

Pretty ugly turn in theory but then again it doesn't change much as Muzone can't really have KJ or have floated the flop with a hand with a King in it (besides something weird like K8 suited). With hindsight, maybe this is a call but I think I walk into JJ or 88 a fair amount of the time. It just seemed hard for him to bluff in this spot as my hand still looks really strong and I think he would expect me to call with QQ in this spot most of the time - therefore making his range a fair bit stronger.

That's why Muzone is so good though, he continually puts you in tough spots that other players don't and has you second-guessing yourself constantly. Almost a week after this hand I'm unsure whether I played the hand well or not. Hopefully Bro will let me know what he had so that I can sleep at night...

3)

Here's the final hand I'll post. This is the biggest pot I won this month.

Seat 1: Najammq ($1,729.25)
Seat 2: langechuckyy ($1,083.80)
Seat 3: BHeisterkamp ($466)

Seat 4: MissFORGETFUL123 (Dealer)  ($2,588.75)

Seat 5: MrStarch (SB $5)  ($1,517)

Seat 6: japete (BB $10) ($1,060)

Dealt to MrStarch

This was about as good a line-up as you'll get at $5/$10. Japete is awesome and Najammq is fine but everyone else is probably a big loser in the game.

Preflop: (Pot: $15)

RAISE Najammq, to $30
FOLD langechuckyy
FOLD MissFORGETFUL123
CALL MrStarch, $25
RAISE japete, to $130
FOLD Najammq
CALL MrStarch, $110

I'll 3-bet KQ suited a fair bit under usual circumstances but you can rely on Japete to squeeze in a spot like this almost all of the time, with or without a usual hand. That's one of the reasons why playing him is always difficult (but fun) - each pot quickly balloons in size. Anyway, while it sucks to be out of position versus a good player, I can't fold KQ suited here so I call. The plan is to hit any part of the flop and just check-call him down as he'll definitely fire multiple streets - especially as he likely considers me scared money at $1000NL. (I used to be, I'm just about un-scared money now...)

Flop: (Pot: $300)

CHECK MrStarch
BET japete, $155
RAISE MrStarch, to $440
RAISE japete, to $765
CALL MrStarch, $480

Incredible flop for me with a good flush draw and two overcards. I'd be quite happy if Japete just folds to my check-raise but I'm still going to have around 50% equity against his range so it's fine to just get it in here and now.

Turn: (Pot: $1,985)

River: (Pot: $1,985)

SHOWS MrStarch


SHOWS japete

MrStarch wins the pot of $2,147

A cool King on the turn and I out-race his JJ to win a $2,150 pot. Easy game eh :)

Good luck at the tables everybody and have a great week. Follow me on Twitter @Starch_Jarvis!

A Memorable Weekend

The signs weren’t good that I would have my best ever weekend in poker at around 5pm on Thursday afternoon. I’d lasted approximately three hours in the £560 UKIPT Brighton main event and didn’t quite know what to do with myself. I was a little disappointed as my starting table was really easy but nothing really went my way, even though I felt pretty good about the way I played.

My bustout hand was fairly interesting and I posted about it here - http://www.pkr.com/en/community/forums/tournaments/my-bustout-hand-from-ukipt-brighton-main-event-55998/ - so you can check that out if you like. I’m still fine with my play but I did feel like a moron when he turned over a better hand. It sucks to be knocked out of tournaments where you really want to do well. I’d imagine it’s akin to hearing your opponent’s name read out at the end of a boxing (or MMA, a far superior sport) match that has gone to the judges – only without the violence.

Enjoying myself at UKIPT Brighton. I was KO'd shortly.

I was also disappointed because a few mates from PKR – WongaMan, BrotherMuzone, Rhymenoceros, MrNiceness – all hail from Brighton (or close by) and it would have been good to make it through the day, have a load of beers and catch up properly. As it was, I sulked off back to London right away and played some of the worst poker of my life for an hour online, dropping $1,000. Friday wasn’t much better either, as I played poker for nearly twelve hours and lost $1,500. It wasn’t boding well.

I was originally supposed to be going to my girlfriend’s 7-year old nephew’s birthday party on Saturday. It would have been quite fun as Louis is cool, he likes playing Pro Evo on my PES3 and we were going to play football in the park and other assorted kiddie things. However, as it was the 16^th of the month and I had so far earned exactly -$500 for my monthly salary I decided to put some more hours in online instead and felt a bit guilty about sending Hattie off on her own to the party. With hindsight, it’s pretty good that I let my professional (selfish?) side take over as by the time I went to bed I’d won $7,500 – my best day online ever.

Cash games were a pretty steady upward spiral with some super soft $2/$4 and even a few fishy $5/$10 games running all afternoon. About $3300 in profit came from there after I ran pretty great and played good too. As it was still only about 7pm by this point I decided to register for three tournaments for a bit of a change while I grinded the cash. I crashed out of one early but had accrued pretty big stacks in both the PKR Open ($22 buy-in) and Monte Carlo ($77 buy-in) and made it to both final tables by about midnight. I’ve never been a big tournament grinder at all but making final tables is still the biggest buzz you can get in poker, and I was determined to try and win both of these in one night. It’s not something that happens often and it would be a cool accolade to have. An hour or so later and I was proud to take this screenshot :)

For some reason my avatar looks like a hollow man dressed in a gimp suit but rest assured, that IS MrStarch...

Woohoo!

Sunday started off good with my Sunday Times subscription (surely I can’t be just 26?) and a good lunch with Hattie at High Road House. The main event of the day – just nudging out The Apprentice final, yes Tom! – was PKR’s first-ever ‘PKR 500’, a new monthly high-roller tourney with a $560 buy-in. I bought straight in after my run good the day before and was lucky enough to get a soft starting table full of people I had never heard of. When you consider all the usual PKR big names were also playing this could have been one of the best bits of luck that I had all tournament. I was able to play pretty aggro and get away with some stuff that wouldn’t have worked against better players.

I did have one really tough hand early on though against a player who went on to finish 3^rd. I’m still not sure if my fold here is correct or not but I liked my discipline in not giving up even though this put me quite short early on. Annoyingly I don’t have the hand history on my hard drive but I had Ah-9d on a 9c-7s-2d-Ac-Tc board. I cbet flop, he called, turn went check/check, I value bet river and he then jammed on me for all my chips. I just had the feeling he wasn’t good enough to be bluffing and eventually I folded. No idea if I was right or wrong.

It all went really smoothly until we got to the final table bubble and I was out of position against betonme who I felt played brilliantly. He was putting pressure on everyone as a big stack and 3-betting me constantly whenever I tried to steal the blinds. I was pretty much card dead at this point so never had anything to play back at him and the one time I did try - four-betting him with As-9s - he jammed on me and I had to wipe away a small tear as I folded. Still, I made it to the final table despite being in the perilous 15-20BB zone and then found a great spot to double-up, moving all-in for 15BBs with A-J and getting called by K-J. A King on the river and I was out in 6^th for $3,600.

It was a great score and now that it’s morning I’m happy but I really would have loved to win the tournament, get the $16,500 (!!!!) for first and complete a weekend mini Triple Crown. Still, I’m incredibly happy with how it all went and I know as much as I played well I needed a lot of luck along the way too. Thanks to all those on PKR who railed me and left me good comments on the forum.

I’m now ranked 241 (from about 3000 odd on Friday…) in the MTT rankings and while cash games will always be my home I’m coming for the MTT Top 10 too…