Busy Day

Today has probably been the most productive day, in general terms, that I have had in a long time. I had a to-do list with about 6 or 7 things and I managed to finish them all with some free time to spare. As for poker, I played 860 hands today, which is below my goal of 1,000, but considering how many hands I played yesterday and the number of non-poker related tasks that I needed to do, I am extremely pleased. The session on a results basis doesn't look very impressive as I only finished +$100 for the day, but it was pretty monumental in terms of my emotional composure. In about the first 150 hands, I ran super poor and was down about $400 (2 buy-ins). During times like this in the past, I would either tilt and self-implode or I would start to play scared. Today, for some reason, I really didn't even notice it and I just kept playing my game, and as the hands went on, I was able to slowly win it all back and then some. I am pretty happy with the way I played today. I only had one donkey payoff when I had two pair and was pretty sure the other guy had a flush, but other than that, I made some good lay downs, as well as some really nice thin value bets. Here are some hands:

Good Read, Bad Result
This may seem bad on my part by getting it all in pre-flop with TT, but this guy had already 4 bet me once, 3 bet me a few times, and then floated one of my 3 bets and then proceeded to shove on my continuation bet (I couldn't call at the time). So his range is wide enough in my opinion to shove with this hand, plus it also brings in some metagame aspects and is good for my image (meaning I won't let him continue to abuse me). My read was good, but he basically flops the nuts with his A6hh, and there went a buy-in.

Bad River
Like I've said in previous posts, I'm trying loosen up my game, so I'm starting to call, raise, and 3 bet suited connectors a lot more as they are so deceptive. Also, if your opponent knows you play hands like that, you can steal a bunch of pots on those nice suited/connected flops. Here I managed to flop bottom two pair on a very drawy board against a wide cutoff range, so it definitely wasn't smart to play it slow, so I didn't. When he flat called, I was able to narrow down his range to basically a draw or combo draw, as most people wouldn't flat call an over pair with that stack and two pair/set/straight has to get it on that scary of a flop. The turn was beautiful and we managed to get it in, with me as a 3:1 favorite. The river brought the worst card in the deck and I knew I was beat before his cards even flipped up.

Revenge from earlier
This was so sweet getting this guy back, especially since it was basically the same situation as last time. This opponent really used his image really poorly. The point of building an image in poker is so that people will perceive your play as a certain style, and then you play exactly the opposite of the style and get payed off. This guy established an image as a light 4 better, and then rather than waiting for a stronger hand to 4 bet me with, he did it again with another weak Ace and this time I held.

These were the major hands and there wasn't too much to analyze about them. I could post some of my nice value bets, but I don't like writing 4 page blog posts.

There is one last thing I want to bring to everyone's attention: Fantasy Football is almost here! Last year was my first year in a fantasy league, but it was definitely the highlight of my Sunday every week. Last year, I just missed the playoffs after starting 0-5, and this year I plan to dominate. Also, the buy-in for our league is $100 this year, so first place is mildly worth playing for. I need some ideas for a team name. At the moment, I am the "Average Joe's", which is a good name (despite the dodge ball references I keep getting) but it doesn't quite have that essence that I'm looking for...