I was about to go to bed when a player called Gulkines(Very Very, did I say very? Loose/Aggressive player) comes to my tables at £2000NL($4000) wanting heads up. He claims he is playing drunk. I refuse to play. He then says he will all in the first hand at which point I sit in. I get dealt A
9
. If he pushes all in for £2000 I am prepared to call. He instead raises to £110 and I just call. It gets checked down and I see he had A
3
at checkdown. This tells me he wasn't planning on pushing anything less than A9 so I nearly made a drastic mistake =) I gently reprimand him for this ruse at which point he says sorry and continues to beg for heads up.
I decide to play him even though I know it will be a huge variance game as he is going to be super ultra loose and aggressive. I can easily lose 15-20k if he goes on a rush perhaps even tilting me. He then types in chat he only wants to play for 30 minutes as he is so drunk. He doesn't seem that drunk as far as his typing goes however so I'm still suspicious. This put me off playing as I didn't want to get stuck big and not be able to win it back but I went ahead anyway.
One of the first hands was :-
He is up about £400 at this point (real early) and I pick up Q
9
on the button and raise to £60.
The flop is 8
2
3
. I bet £100. He calls. The pot is now £320.
The turn is the 9
giving me top pair. He checks and I bet £220. He calls making the pot £760.
The river is the J
. He checks and I bet £520 for value on the river. He very quickly pushes all in for £2126 leaving me a call of £1600. I have about 2-1 on the call but it seems super marginal and I haven't seen him bluffing yet as it is early in the game. There is no flow yet. I fold. He shows A
7
for a pure bluff. I get slightly pissed and now choose to sit into the other game where he is begging for more heads up again £2000 buy in. We play 2 tables of heads up for the rest of the session.
He is up about £1200 pretty quickly when I get this hand on the secondary table :-
He raises on the button to £60 and I reraise with A
A
to £260. He pushes all in which I obviously call giving us a £4000 pot, his hand is turned up and I see Q
3
.
The board comes 4
2
5
giving him an open ender, ugh. The turn is the J
and the river is the 8
so he misses and I double up. However, exactly as this hand is happening another hand is going on at the other table which is affected by what I've just seen here.
The hand on the other table goes :-
I raise on the button to £80 with Q
Q
which he again raises to £260. I decide to trap him with my monster and not reraise. I rarely four bet my premium hands as I don't like my hand being defined this easily, it is more likely a bluff if I do. The pot is now £520.
The flop comes 2
3
J
. A very impressive flop for my QQ which is almost certainly ahead. He bets £260 and I just call making the pot £1040. The turn is the J
, ugh. A bad card because it might spoil my action but I'm not overly concerned that I could be beat. I will be calling any bet on the turn here. He in fact checks and I decide to check also hoping to pick up my profit on the river card. The river is the K
which is a very horrible card for me but I am still very likely best here.
At this point the AA hand had just finished on the other table where I see this huge crazy all in bluff with Q3o. At this point he pushes all in for £2874 at the QQ table. I look back and see this all in overbet as the pot is only £1040. I only have £2000 left in my stack. I snap call here expecting to see a bluff again. He in fact shows K
4
and scoops in the £4655 pot. Ugh. This semi-tilted me. I was now down around £1500-£2000 after having just scooped the AA pot. Sigh.
A few pots further down the line I pick up 5
4
on the button and raise to £80. He calls making the pot £160.
The flop comes 6
A
2
. I bet £120 and he reraises to £320. I decide to float him here and call with my gutshot more than willing to make a move on any good turn card. The pot is now £800. The turn comes the 7
. Other than a 3 I couldn't really ask for better. He bets £550 here and I push all in. He snap calls with only A
5
. Good call but this is really about all he beats, of course it's what I'm holding this time. Sigh. The river comes the 9
and he scoops the £4137.
Now I'm down around £4000.
I lose a few more smaller pots in a row and find myself down £6000. We've only been playing twenty minutes =) I now regret playing. I've got a long hard struggle just to get back to even now and then I remember we are only playing for thirty minutes. ARGH. I lose a bunch more pots over the next ten minutes and find that I am down around £7500 when he sits out. Jesus.
At this point it is me who starts begging him to play on and to give me just ten more minutes but he keeps going on about how he is tired and drunk and can't keep his eyes open. I now believe he is drunk and really want to play on but he is refusing. After a bit he relents and agrees to ten more minutes.
Within twenty hands this one comes up :-
I have J
T
on the button and raise to £80. He reraises to £260 as usual. I've decided to call pretty much all his raises now with any two playable cards as he is reraising most of the time. Welcome to high variance poker. The pot is £520.
The flop comes Q
8
9
. Wow, I flop the nuts. About time something good happened. He bets £280 which I of course call bringing the pot total to £1080. The turn is the Q
. A bad card as it may kill my action if he thinks I have top pair. I am not concerned I am behind obviously. He checks and I decide to also check as the chances of him having absolutely nothing are just too big. I must give him a chance to bluff the river or catch up. The river is the 6
and he checks again. I bet £1040. I have £2316 left behind after this bet and he still has £2791 in his stack. He quickly pushes all in making it £1751 more for me to call. I snap call and he shows T
3
for a huge bluff on the river. I pull in the £6661 pot.
This pot pulled me back to down only around £4500. I then lose over the next fifty hands taking me back to around £5500 down when this hand comes up :-
I still have a £6176 stack at the other table where I pick up K
K
. He has £3015 in his stack. He raises on the button to £60 and I reraise to £280. He calls. The pot is £560.
The flop comes 3
8
5
. A great flop for me. I lead into him for £540. He thinks for five seconds and pushes all in for £2745. I instantly call. He turns over 6
4
which is an open ended straight draw. The turn comes the 2
and I am drawing dead to the river.
He scoops the £6050 pot leaving me down around £8500. Now I am annoyed and can see I can't win it back in the remaining few minutes so I uncheck my blinds getting ready to just quit him when another player joins one of the tables with £1000. I quickly stack him with top set getting me back to around £7500 down. Gulkines then sits out but strangely then decides to sit back in again. Does he feel sorry for me? Perhaps =)
I win a few small pots then win this one :-
He raises on the button to £60 and I reraise to £240 with T
8
. He calls of course making the pot £480.
The flop comes A
2
A
. I lead for £300 and he minimum raises to £600. I'm not having any of that and reraise to £1160. We are both double stacked so he definitely has a decision. He thinks and then folds probable air giving me the £1700 pot.
We play a further fifty hands with nothing major happening and then I pick up K
J
on the button. We are both double stacked. I raise to £80 and he reraises to £240. I call making the pot £480.
The flop is T
Q
2
. He bets £220. I call making the pot £920. The turn is the 4
. He checks and I check. The river is the 9
and he checks again. I bet £900. He calls with A
T
. I scoop the £2719 pot.
Five hands later this hand comes up:
We are both double stacked. He raises to £60 on the button and I reraise to £180 with A
K
. He calls making the pot £360.
The flop comes 7
K
6
giving me top pair and top kicker. I bet £340 and he calls making the pot £1040. The turn comes the 9
and I bet £940. He pushes all in for £3225 making it £2285 more for me to call. I cannot fold this hand to him so I instantly call. He shows K
5
and the river comes the Q
letting me scoop the £7490 pot. If he had hit a 5 or 8 on the river here I would have been mightily annoyed =)
This pot is key and takes me back to being down only around £3000.
We play several more pots where I am mostly winning but nothing huge when the following crazy hand comes up :-
Again we are both double stacked. I raise Q
7
on the button to £80 and he reraises to £260. I call of course bringing the pot to £520.
The flop is 7
6
2
. A good flop for me. He bets £380 and I just call taking the pot to £1280. The turn is the 6
putting a 3 flush out there. He checks the turn and as I am almost certainly ahead here and don't want to give him a free card I bet £960. He pushes all in instantly for his entire stack making it £1989 more for me to call. This is a really horrible spot but because of how the session has been played I just have to call here even though some of the time I am drawing nearly dead. I'm not putting in £1500 and then folding top pair good kicker for £2000 more. I call and he flips over 9
7
. I am leading! Of course the K
hits on the river giving him a split pot. Argh. I nearly scooped the £7178 all to myself =(.
We play some more pots and I make some headway when the final decent pot takes place :-
I raise A
A
on the button to £80. He just calls this time from the small blind making the pot £160.
The flop is 6
9
6
. A good flop for me. He checks and I bet £140. He check raises me to £360. I just call here obviously. This brings the pot to £880. The turn is the Q
which he checks and which I also check in the hopes of him either bluffing the river or paying me off there. The river is the 3
. A total blank if he had been drawing. He checks and I bet £600 into £880. He check raises me to £1560 and I have a very easy call. He shows 7
5
for yet another bluff. I scoop the £4000 pot.
He sat out soon after this pot and then quit the tables. I'm not sure exactly but I think I finished up a little bit vs him. Maybe only £1000 or so but I'm not entirely sure as I was playing other tables and lost track. Of course I was very lucky to not end down $16,000 or so after thirty minutes but he was good enough to play on and I got fortunate enough to get it back. It is no wonder I only play a few heads up sessions per week as some of them can be pretty stressful when you are getting railed.
The above image is my pokertracker stats from the past forty days which is pretty much the point at which I started working really hard on my poker again. This coincides precisely with my return from Denmark where I had a nice holiday with my friend Rasmus(4K.Kaj) and his girlfriend Sophie. I still have some photos to post from that trip! Anyway, I played some in Denmark too but that was only on my laptop and in a different database. I also played some live poker at the casino with Rasmus where we lost three nights in a row versus the biggest fishies I ever did see =)
This is my graph from the past forty days. You can see that at 75k hands I have a big downswing of nearly $35,000 in one day, that sucked.
These are my stats from the past six days where I've been experimenting with some stuff. Overall a bit looser and defending my big blind more, this has the unfortunate consequence of reducing my overall aggressiveness. Calling more reduces your aggressiveness and calling less increases it. This is an easy way to increase your aggressiveness if you struggle with that part of your game. Simply call less.
