Nanowrimo done, I river quads

Ding! Took me only 23 days. 50,070 words long (I found a word I needed to add right after I posted on +1 taht I'd finished, so my count of 50,069 was wrong), or 85 pages in Times New Roman, size 12, single spaced. I also won another $18 from Nate Kellogg by doing this unless he manages to write 50K words within the next five days.

Been playing a decent amount of live poker lately, but not for huge money. The past half-week has been bigger in comparison-- ten or twenty dollar buy-in cash games as opposed to two dollar tournaments to kill time. I was up a pathetic 15 on the week until today, when Truax played an overpair in omaha like a huge donkey and somehow managed to get there.

Came home and played online. Found myself stuck prety early after taking a couple beats and then paying off a couple made draws like an idiot. Most of the hands weren't that interesting, but I really like this hand, if for no other reason that I won it:

Full Tilt Poker
No Limit Holdem Ring game
Blinds: $0.25/$0.50
6 players
Converter


Stack sizes:
UTG: $21
UTG+1: $58.25
CO: $61.60
Button: $22.80
SB: $13.20
Hero: $49.25


Pre-flop: (6 players) Hero is BB with
UTG calls, UTG+1 calls, CO folds, Button calls, SB calls, Hero checks.


Flop: ($2.5, 5 players)
SB checks, Hero checks, UTG checks, UTG+1 bets $1, Button calls, SB folds, Hero raises to $4, UTG folds, UTG+1 calls, Button folds.


Turn: ($11.5, 2 players)
Hero bets $5, UTG+1 calls.


River: ($21.5, 2 players)
Hero is all-in $39.75, UTG+1 calls.


Results:
Final pot: $101
Hero showed 5d Qh
UTG+1 mucks 9s Ts


Not bad. I dunno how I feel about the flop play. I think maybe in the long run, I might be better served to lead out. That way, if the 9's decide to raise (to gain information) I can just call, and hopefully check-raise the turn. Plus, check-raising the flop puts me in a funny spot if a K or 8 comes on the turn. Since I'm not worried about a 9 and want to avoid JT, I think I might've been better served to raise a little bit more, if I decide to take that line at all.

Anyways, the turn play I think is pretty standard.

The river is the part of the hand I really like. I know I have the best hand, and that my opponent has one of the following hands: 1) a nine 2) JT. I didn't even consider the possibility of him having other hands. So what do I do?

If he has a nine:
-It's gonna be hard for him to get away from this hand. Even though I was representing the queen with my play, it's way harder for me to have it now. Since I didn't raise PF, he's gonna be hard-pressed to put me on TT/JJ/KK/AA. So he might put me on either a nine or a missed draw. If he puts me on those two hands, by jamming-- even for twice the pot size, he's always gonna call. The only hand he can really fear here is quads, and since it's so rare, he's unlikely to give me credit.

If he has JT:
-No bet will get him to call. I only have two options for him to put more money in the pot.
1) Bet a tiny amount, and hope he senses weakness and raises.
2) Check, hoping to induce a bluff.
But I think I'd showed enough strength in the hand that he'd be unlikely to make a move. Additionally, since there was trips on the board, most people are unlikely to make a move since there are so many hands that people are going to pay-off with (basically any pair, at least if your opp. is a bad player, and I was new to the table and have a cowgirl avatar on FT, so people might assume I'm a total donkey).

So out of those possibilities, I figured I should jam, and he called almost isntantly. NH me.

I don't have work for another week, so I'll have a lot more time to play, hopefully. The laptops been acting like a bitch lately, so I may be getting a new one soon.

Okay, that's all for tonight.

Short Session

This Nanowrimo thing has taken up almost all of my time, so I've only had time to play twice this month. A week ago I played an awful, awful session to drop a buy-in and a half (I actually took a pretty sick beat with AK when a guy called my reraise PF and then big flop bet with his 69s that flopped a gutshot and hit).

I think today I played a little better. I got a set paid off v. kings, which was basically my entire profit for the session, so it wasn't like I played brilliantly.

I think I misplayed a set of queens in one hand, leading out in a non-descript board instead of letting him catch up, because there was no way the guy had any semblance of a hand in that spot.

I played another hand terribly, where I checked behind the two blinds with TPWK, and let them catch up. I didn't pay it off, but if I bet the flop I'm pretty sure I win the pot uncontentested. At the time, I was thinking I was checking the flop because I didn't want to play a big pot with a marginal hand, but it was a dumb, dumb move.

Almost halfway done with nanowrimo. Might be going up to Connecticut this weekend to see Arielle.

Lucko's Question

Lucko asked me an interesting question about the ATo hand where I flopped the gutshot, bet a dollar and got smooth-called, and turned the straight.

He asked: The $1 bet is def interesting. What % of times do you think you get a call\fold\raise?

Hmm. Well if I assume his range is 88+,ATs+,AJo+ and that he'll only raise with AA, KK or AQ (which is overly simplified, but close enough, I think), then on the flop he can have:

AA (3 ways)
KK (6 ways)
QQ (3 ways)
JJ (3 ways)
TT (6 ways)
99 (6 ways)
88 (6 ways)
AK (12 ways)
AQ (9 ways)
AJ (9 ways)
ATs (2 ways)

So if my assumptions on him are correct, then I get raised 18 times, and called 47 times. So I think 28% of the time, I'm gonna end up losing a dollar, which is actually more than I was expecting. However, with his stack size being deep enough at this point, I think that the 72% of the time he does call and I hit the turn (about 10%-- making it about 7% of the time I bet a dollar) I get win a big pot, given his likely holdings. I need something like 13.5-1 implied odds (if I did the math right, I'm rushing throuhg this) in order to make the times he raises me or the times I miss make up for all the dollar's I've bet. Actually, since enough of the time he'll have re-draw potential (when he has a set) I might need considerable more implied odds... but there are already $13 in the pot, plus his 14th dollar, and I think unless he has 99 or 88, I can be able to squeeze another bet out of him to make up for this, especially if I take the line that I took (check w/ intent of CR-ing the turn, because if he bets, I usually already make up for it, and if he doesn't he's much more likely to call a decent sized bet on the river if he assumes that I missed a flush draw or just decides to make a fuck-you call.

Nanowrimo Word Counter

Nanowrimo Begins

I have a little over 2.6K words done, or a little over 5%. Not bad, given that you need to average about a thousand less than that per day, but I wanted to get a big headstart on it.

I've played less poker this week, but there's a hand I wanted to write about, because I love the way I played it. In fact, I think that I played the hand so badly that (given my opponent) it was genius.

Hand #35086003-3538 at Virginia Beach (No Limit Hold'em)
Started at 27/Oct/06 17:50:15

AAPONYAA is at seat 0 with $21.
themffulton is at seat 1 with $126.80.
CobberABC is at seat 2 with $97.75.
Harpoon is at seat 3 with $53.95.
aar0nh is at seat 4 with $62.80.
jiff1014 is at seat 5 with $43.15.
The button is at seat 4.

jiff1014 posts the small blind of $.50.
AAPONYAA posts the big blind of $1.

AAPONYAA: -- --
themffulton: Ac Th
CobberABC: -- --
Harpoon: -- --
aar0nh: -- --
jiff1014: -- --

Pre-flop:

themffulton raises to $3.50. CobberABC folds.
Harpoon folds. aar0nh re-raises to $6. jiff1014
folds. AAPONYAA folds. themffulton calls.

Flop (board: 4s Qs Jh):

themffulton bets $1. aar0nh calls.

Turn (board: 4s Qs Jh Kh):

themffulton checks. aar0nh bets $5. themffulton
raises to $15. aar0nh calls.

River (board: 4s Qs Jh Kh 2h):

themffulton bets $45.50. aar0nh goes all-in for
$40.80. themffulton is returned $4.70 (uncalled).



Showdown:

themffulton shows Ac Th.
themffulton has Ac Th Qs Jh Kh: straight, ace high.
aar0nh shows As Kc.
aar0nh has As Kc Qs Jh Kh: a pair of kings.


Hand #35086003-3538 Summary:

$3 is raked from a pot of $127.10.
themffulton wins $124.10 with straight, ace high.
----------------------------------------------------------------

The PF raise is standard. After his reraise, I'm aware that I most likely don't have the best hand, but his raise was so small (the minimum) I feel bad just letting him have it.

The flop is the most interesting part of the hand. I flop a gutshot. If I check it to him, I know for a fact that he's gonna bet something like ten dollars at the pot as a continuation bet. I'm out of position, and don't feel like guessing if that's a bet with 99, AK, AQ, or a set. So I lead out the minimum, what would normally be a terrible play, because if I had a big hand like a set, I'd want to build a big pot and protect my hand because the board has a lot of straight draws available, as well as the flush draw.

I also figure that unless he's got AQ, KK or AA, he's probably gonna smooth call here. AK will call because of the price he's being given, and it's unlikely for him to assume he has the best hand at the moment, so he's not likely going to raise here. A hand like QQ or JJ is likely to play it slow, because... well, I think that's clearly the wrong move, but I see it all the time. And AJ is probably going to want to play a small pot.

The turn is my gin card. I planned on him betting pretty large when I checked to him. Besides an underpair, any hand that reraised me preflop is going to have hit that flop pretty decently. I was hoping that he'd bet big, and I could check-raise him all-in and that he'd feel committed and call. So I really didn't like his small bet. I raised him to 15, so that when the river came, there would be more in the pot than in his stack, which increases the chance I get a call.

The river comes, and I move in. Something not shown in the HH is the chat box. He thought for a pretty long time about this. I thought it was actually pretty likely he'd fold, and I also thought that a lot of the time he was spending was trying to put me on a hand, which would be difficult given the weird way I played it. So I gave him a hand to put me on. In the chatbox, I typed "missed spades?" as if I were asking him what he was thinking about, but in reality, I think that my saying this made him think "THAT'S what he's got" because as soon as I said that, he called almost right away.

Alright, that's all for now. More updates on poker and the novel soon.