Weird PLO hand-

3 handed, 100bb stacks. Villain is on another table and seems to be semi competent. He’s opened every button, never open limped, and seems to be TAGgy.

I don’t have alot of history with him and haven’t played many hands…but this hand comes up-

He opens BTN $7, SB (donk) folds, I reraise to $22 A25K , he calls.

Flop ($45): Q 7 3
I bet 30, He calls.

($105) Turn: T

My play?

My thought process:
PF- I think this might be a tad marginal, but we’re 3- handed and my hand plays alright. It might be a bit aggressive, but I’m fine with that. I expect to take it down on the flop a fair amount (since at this limit, players aren’t going to be playing back super super light).

Flop- I have a pair and some backdoor equity. I think this is a fine spot to bet. I think it’s an easy b/f, as I’m not looking that great against something like AQK or something on the flop. At these limits, I don’t believe he’d 4-bet such a hand either. I do have okay equity against something like QJT or whatever, and if were to just pot raise that, meh…I feel as if many players will simply flat call on the flop, since he knows that AAxx is never folding (and he’s a dog to that).

Turn- I think it’s best to just pot/call it off. I have plenty of equity, I balance my range a bit and I think it’s better than c/c-ing or c/r-ing. I think with deeper stacks it becomes a tad more interesting, since I might not be able to bet/call it depending on stacks. That said, 100bb deep, I think this seems like a no brainer pot call.

What if my equity was a tad marginalized, though? Does my plan change? make it just a pure flush draw, maybe it’s a bet/fold now? I don’t know.

Either way, I decided to take the worst option- I check/called. I think this option is mehhh and while I was at the table I was like “eh, not bad” but after reflecting, this seems quite poor. Anyways, I binked a J on the river and check/called his jam when he had 33.

Not sure why I decided to share this hand. Thought I could add a little more poker content, I know I’ve been slacking.

I’ve been thinking about writing something poker related so here it is-

As many of you poker players know, there is a new poker documentary in the works by Green Plastic and KRANTZ called BOOM. I’m pretty pumped for this and will definitely watch it.It will be fun to watch something that I’ve not only read about but have been a part of myself.

When observing many of my older poker friends, I notice that we were incredibly lucky to be a part of something during such a ‘boom’. Success is predicated on many factors (and the degrees of ‘success’ can be defined in many things).  One such thing is luck.

I know that it was luck that brought me much of my poker success. I attribute the beginnings of my poker learning from 2+2, a site I found by googling ‘poker forums’. Having never read one of their books, I actually read the limit Holdem forums for months before discovering they had a NL section.

This isn’t an article where I’ll jerk myself off and boast about how awesome I am. Rather, I’ll emphasize how important luck was when we first started to play and learn. Those of us who were early enough to take advantage of the poker knowledge that was out there and use it to gain large profits during the boom. We were lucky in a few senses-

1- We were lucky that we found books, forums, friends to discuss hands with. And we were all smart enough to capitalize on it.

2- We were lucky to run well at the start of our careers. Sometimes a hellish bad run can cripple someone, especially at the start.

We swam in profits and sat there. For years, our basic strategies were enough to get us by. Our knowledge was ahead of the curve, so to speak, and the amount of fish made up for our shortcomings.

But the games are tougher today.  They have evolved to the point where you’re seeing many regulars eating up the fish as quickly as possible. The boom is over, and many of us who enjoyed incredible success in yester-years are having a much more difficult time today. I feel like many of my friends have grown stagnant in their poker learning. Gone are the days where we discuss hands for hours on end, or scour the forums from top to bottom, desperate for more thought provoking strategy posts. We were making a living off playing cards. And as our interest waned in poker, so did the profits. Many of my friends don’t enjoy poker anymore, and do it as a means to an end.

When thinking about environments and survival, it’s interesting to relate that to the poker world. I feel like many of my older poker friends have given up poker. For whatever reason; be it stress or a job or something else, they moved on. Those who worked their asses off are now at the top of the poker world, people like cts and durrrr and others.

What am I trying to get at here? I guess I’m trying to draw the relationship between the incredible luck that got us here, followed by the laziness that ensued- luck cannot succeed on its own. Stagnation leads to sloppiness. And in a game like poker, this doesn’t work. Since the players need to be at the top of their game these days,  hungrier, younger players will prevail.  Tough competition breeds nasty players, and there is always going to be a newer player that emerges to challenge the old (isildur, jungleman, etc).

I suppose this post is nothing but a ramble. Looking over it, it’s a bunch of random, incoherent thoughts.

Here are some stupid links that I have been reading/listening/watching the last few days:

Luckiest Bastards Alive…people avoiding accidents by a disgustingly slim margin

‘Mombasa’ song from the movie ‘Inception’- entire soundtrack is excellent

Blood Sport Karma- George St. Pierre Highlight. Very fun, great HL

Oversigning.com, a blog on scholarships and transfers in college football

Live TR from 2 days ago:

Friend wanted to go to the casino during the day. I told him that the action would be minimal since most people work and it isn’t a weekend. He insisted on going anyways and I found two 1/3 tables running. We played at the same table, with the max being $200.

I overlimp 68o otb, a few others in. Flop 664. All check to me, I bet, one call. Turn 3, he check/calls another bet. River J, I cringe, he bets like 1/6th pot into me, I call. He wins with 88

A bit later, I try bluffing an old nit on Axx and lose to AK. It wasn’t a large pot but this was a clearly horrible play by me. I’m ****ing spewy retarded bad when I play live.

I raise AJ in MP, get a few calls. Flop J8T, short donk shoves into me, BB calls the shove, I flat, ready to bomb any brick turn. Turn: 2, he checks, I bet like $55 into $85 or something, he calls. River 9 he just open jams and I fold, he shows QJo and the other guy mucks.

So now I’m down like $250 off retarded plays and getting asian’d. I win a few small pots (stealing on brick boards, etc). I witness a funny hand:

PFR opens, few callers. Flop 9xxr, retard donks $12, one guy calls $12, PFR raises to like $40, retard donk calls, other guy calls. Turn: Jx, retard donks $20, other guy CALLS $20, PFR makes it $100 straight, donk folds, other guy RAISES to $100 more on top, PFR rejams QQ and loses to JJ. obviously they all scream **** like “I KNEW YOU HAD THAT!!” or “I KNEW I WAS BEAT AFTER THE FLOP AND I WAS GONNA FOLD IF I DIDN’T HIT THAT JACK ON THE TURN”.

I open QQ, get 2 calls. Flop KQJ, I bet, one guy calls, he is semi short, other folds. Turn 7x, i just ship him in, he insta calls with AT, river is 7 and the table moans.

I steal more pots, getting almost up to even. I make some pussy plays and lose out on some spots where i know I should be more aggro…but meh, I bitched out.

Limped pot. I bet 64o on a 528 board, 1 call. This guy has been splashing around every hand and I’ve seen him turn made hands into bluffs (though, he’s unaware of it). He also likes to be a hero (I earlier saw him c/c, c/c, bet/call on a QJ588 board with KQ and he lost to Q8). He also bet KQ when checked to on the river on an AQ225 board fairly large for whatever reason (3 way) and lost to AK.

Turn J, I bet again, he calls. River is 3. Given I’ve seen him try to turn hands into bluffs, I bet like 1/2 pot on the river. He raises me very small and I call, beating 44.

Anyways, friend I was with nearly bustos after limping a ****ton and not raising one hand preflop. He is bleeding like $10 away at a time and then has had enough and stands up. I see some other hilarious hands where MP check/calls BTn bet 979, turn 7, check check, river x MP bets, BTN jams, MP calls with 7T and obviously loses to 9J and says “I just couldn’t fold it”.

I get up and go eat a chicken fried steak, a -$140 loser. Whatever, I played bad. Also confirmed that I hate live poker.

Some ramblings on Vegas-

-Naked Fish is very good and cheap (relatively). (This is not breaking news). I have not had many tremendously nice restaurants and am hoping to hit up one or two before I leave.

-Coming from South America, Vegas is ridiculously expensive…hell, even relative to other U.S. cities it is expensive. As stated previously, though, you go into a degen mentality and don’t really care. I am running alright with regards to flips (actually, thinking about it now, I’m up in equity).

-I was waiting to meet up with some friends and sitting on the rail of the Wynn Poker room. I start talking with an old black man and find out that he went to NU and was an ex-roommate of Johnny Rodgers, a Heisman winner. He said he was his backup and transferred to Michigan, probably due to never being able to play.

I’m not really sure how much of this was bullshit but I dunno. He currently bet horses and other sports as a retired pit boss of 30 years. He took a call and picked a few horses, saying that his boss called to confirm a few more horse bets. I asked who his boss was and he replied “Bobby Baldwin”.

“Bullshit…you don’t know Bobby Baldwin”
“Everyone has an opinion. Wait here an hour and he’ll be here.”

I later watched some horses with him and he won his bet. I met my friends and never had a chance to see Bobby. I still wonder if that guy was full of shit.

-Live poker has been going pretty meh…though, I’ve only played two sessions. I pretty much had zero hands and couldn’t really win a pot over 50bbs.

I didn’t play great either, but gah, still frustrating. The only interesting hand I had was:

I open T8o in LP. I get a few callers (all of a variety of different player types and stack sizes).

Flop: 972r- I bet, I get one caller in position. He’s a looser guy who I earlier bluffed against.

Turn: Qx- I bet again ($80 into whatever), he raises to $180. I think I probably should have jammed here (or folded)…instead, I took the worst option and called.

River: Tx- I check, he bets $400 into whatever. I tank for a long time and fold. He shows 34s for the stone cold bluff. I feel dirty at my poor play.

Anyways, nothing else to note. I have some friends coming up today and am looking forward to seeing them. Might play in some venetian events but I’m still unsure.