When I was a kid my dad told me it would start to snow on his
birthday. It actually happened a number of times throughout
my childhood. He was right again here in 2010

It's been a while since I made my last update. The reason is that I've been fighting like crazy to get rid of my cold. Everytime I got up and went to work I got sick again and had to spent another couple of days at home feeling bad for myself. Enough with the self-pitty.

I kid you not when I tell you that the fruit of my hard work from the last two weeks can be summed up in a 272 big blinds loss over 874 hands. My stats were 26/22/2.9 with a 3B% of 10.6. There were a few ugly setup hands that really hurt the over all result. Lost a full buyin with 33 on a 663 flop to 66 and lost 180+ big blinds allin pre with AA against AJs!?

At this point I think I'm ready to draw a conclusion of whether this new overaggressive style works or not. Over the course of this month I certainly haven't been good enough to lay down hands when my opponents wasn't playing back at me but clearly had a hand. Just need to improve there and the style is hugely effective. Against the better players it seemed like they actually started to play back with 4B bluff and such, which makes me think I need to be more aware of them and gear down appropriately. In December I'll try to implement those changes and hope for a poker-christmas-gift.

To end this blog I'll give you a hand that made me want to pull my hair out, both during and after the hand was played. I've been sitting at the table for about half an hour and I've seen Player4 actively put money in the pot when he basically had the nuts. Besides that he had been calling and folding. His stats are 31/5/1.8 with a 3B% of 3.8 but this is based on only 65 hands so I'll trust my read way more than the stats.

This is what happened. Note that we are almost 150 big blinds deep.

NL100
Button: seat 2
Seat 4: Player4 ($149.15)
Seat 5: Player5 ($48)
Seat 9: Player9 ($112.60)
Seat 1: Hero ($173.30)
Seat 2: Player2 ($110.50)
Player4 posts small blind ($0.50)
Player5 posts big blind ($1)
---
Dealing to Hero: [Ad, Ah]
Player9 folds
Hero raises $3 to $3
Player2 folds
Player4 calls $2.50
Player5 folds
--- Dealing flop [2d, 6h, 8h] ($7)
Player4 bets $4
Hero raises $14 to $14
Player4 calls $10
--- Dealing turn [Qh] ($35)
Player4 bets $35
Hero calls $35
--- Dealing river [8d] ($105)
Player4 checks
Hero checks
---
Summary:
Player4 shows [5h, 7h]
Hero shows [Ad, Ah]
Player4 won $105 (-$3) from main pot

Analysis
There's not much to say preflop. I expect him to call a fairly wide range there based on previous hands.

On the flop he decides to donkbet. This makes me think hes range consists of draws, pairs, overpairs, sets and two pair. He is so passive that I think he's almost never donkbetting here because he think the flop didn't hit me. I decide to raise it up and I would have folded should he have 3B me. It's way more likely that this kind of player want's to play for stacks with made hands than draws.

The turn brings a suited Q. It gives me some extra outs but it also completes the flush. Now he suddenly donks out again. Full pot this time. If I just call there exactly pot bet left on the river. I'm pretty sure most of his range consists of flushes, which is the only hands he is representing at the moment. Would it make sense for him to make a move here? Not really. My problem is that I want to fold but the fact that I have an overpair and the nut flush draw makes it really hard. But if he already have the flush I only have like 16% and it's not even sure I stack him if I hit my heart on the river. On top of that I havent even accounted for the possible straight flushes he might have. The math dictates that I need to win atleast another $79 when I hit the river, which I don't think is realistic at all.

If he lead out on the turn for value I beat nothing in his range. If, very unlikely, he did lead out as a bluff I think he will bet the river again and I have to fold all rivers except hearts.

In this case I think that a fold on the turn had been the best play.