A weird two-tabling

I've had a rough stretch that I mostly blame myself for, and generally closed Cake in disgust rather than capture hand histories and blog about it. Feeling like it tonight, though.

I find myself in an interesting two-table situation that I'm going to try out. The empy seats were at 10-max .25/.50 and 10-max .02/.04, so I'm playing them both. I'm going to try to use the freedom to splash around at .02/.04 help keep me disciplined at .25/.50.

I use this system to find it in me to fold Ts-9s-9d-8s preflop at the 50 table in the first orbit. Man, the hold'em player in me wants to play it so badly. And if they were double-suited and I was on the button, I probably wouldn't be able to resist.

Meanwhile, the system also lets me play Ac-8c-4h-2d from the SB like this at the 4 table, so it's all good.

I get aces at the 50, and a short stack check-raises me with no fold equity and a pair of aces actually holds up in O8.

Is this a good turn call assuming a range of ace-low** from my opponent? Will run it later. OK, ran it later. Basically EV neutral against that range.

ROT shows me that my opponent, with Kh-Kd-5d-2h, was definitely calling a value bet on the river, here. Even though the T on the river actually eliminates some boat outs, I would basically be committing myself with a v-bet and I get check-raised. I probably left $17 on the table; if he's calling the turn with the k-high flush, he would have called a shove on the river. Why start fearing boats now?

Again, a place where a better player finds a way to be +EV, and I chose EV neutral.

Bah. Back to back AAKJss hands, with the first one earning me blinds and limps, the second getting me into ten-dollar trouble. Naturally, they flop aces full at the 4 shortly after.

Funny back-to-back hands from the 4...

I like my line on this one. I nearly folded preflop, which may have been correct since nobody at the table seems to be raising pf with much less than AA, but I have to bet that flop when it checks to me. The turn is great for me, but I'm not made unless KK is good, so I like the check-behind. When I hit on the river, I feel like if I have the scoop, he'll either pay in full or not pay a dime and bet accordingly. Villain was on AA82ss.

OK, this session has been fun and profitable, but I have other things to do. The "auto post" buttons are uncheked. Itis allowed on the 4...which goes fine until I'm quartered on the last hand.

$4 --> $8.22
$50 --> $88.55
~60 Hands/Table

Coding the Wheel

The codingthewheel.com website shows how to roll your own poker bot. I've only lightly skimmed the pages. It seems a little light on details but the framework is probably all there. Anyway, for your perusal.

Also, apart from the poker aspect is his view on writing specs. In his "You Can't PDF Your Way to Good Software" section he writes "The likelihood of a specification document's actually being read varies inversely with its length."

Poker and the Sasquatch! Festival

This article combines two of my favorite things: poker and Seattle independent music. It’s only mildly poker-related, but since I know a few of you appreciate the music scene like I do, I thought I’d share.

Ultimate Bet cheating scandal

Ultimate Bet has a group of users with potripper-esque stats with 60% VPIP and 150 BB/hour win rate. Furthermore Ultimate Bet and Aboslute Poker are both owned by the same company...what are the odds?

More information on a thread over at Chiptalk.net.

Why limit Stud?

Last week at lunch poker Ryan was pondering as to why 7cs was played limit, presumably as opposed to NL or even PL. I immediately piped in that there were too many streets to which Ryan replied that there was only one more. After some quick math I determined that he was indeed correct.

After pondering it over some more I think that it really would be a different game, or rather not really much of a game, if it were NL. I think that hands would rarely get to 7th street and that would take away a lot of the game. In Razz for instance anyone with A23 or even three primes would be hammering that pot before they bricked. In 7cs it would be a shove fest when anyone had a big pair or rolled up. I think part of the appeal of 7cs is the delicate balance between early made low strength hands racing against draws to more powerful hands with the River being the finish line. And 7cs/8 would not even exist since low draws would never get to their fifth card even if they were catching perfect up to that point. I suppose a monster draw could try it but they would probably be put all in before they get there and will just need to hope to coast into a hand after the money gets in. Even going pot limit would shut out any drawing hands if two or more big pairs starting re-potting each other on 3rd.

Yeah, I think 7cs has to be Fixed Limit.

There was a request

So I’m simply fulfilling that request. I know this isn’t the venue for this sort of self-promotion, so I can remove the link in a week if you’d prefer to not have the TNP site muddied up. But more than one person at TNP requested it, so here it is.

For all things baby-related in my world, please go here.

Omaha hole card nicknames?

Hey any of you Omaha junkies ever notice someone referring to a set of hole cards by nicknames? Hold'em has big slick, pocket rockets, big lick, the hammer, etc. but there seems to be a dearth of Omaha nicknames. Only one I could easily find was AK47.

Have we talked about this already?

Has anybody played here before? Seems like, with it’s “legality”, the chance for a larger amount of d0nkitude is there.

WSOP Main Event final table to be held in November

As Joe pointed out, the Main Event will abruptly stop at the final table and resume many months later in November.

Jeh says there are good reasons for it. I'd like to hear them.