Damn Ringer's Poker Blog

Alright I am still unable to figure out why these sessions happen but basically here’s the jest of what goes down. Here’s the familiar symptoms of the sessions that drive me up a wall…

1. I can’t flop anything with AK or anything else i’ve managed to be the aggressor for in a 3-way pot.
2. I can’t get a 3-bet/4-bet outta my villains when i hold AA/KK.
3. I can get a 3-bet/4-bet when i’m holding my mediocre hands in the same place as said AA/KK.
4. I get sucked out on pretty regularly.

Ok so maybe that list was a little biased to me being slightly perturbed. I just finished a session where i was down $1k. This isn’t too bad honestly. I got my money in good for 100bb good and got sucked out on (http://www.pokerhand.org/?2756580). I had the guy spot on AK, but whoops forgot about the clubs and he got there. I really like my play here, keep him in the drivers seat going into the turn. I think raising the flop again really gives away my strength.

I was being pretty serious when i’m saying i don’t understand why these kinds of sessions happen. All these factors come together, and i’m just getting needled to death for the most part. I was down more than a buy-in from just getting my c-bets picked off. Lets take a less ‘i am unlucky’ look at this situation and step into the likely realm of reality.
Possible reasons I am getting played back at on such soft tables:

1. I don’t ever establish i’m ready to 4-bet pre- from a steal position without AA/KK. I really think i should do something sixpeppers mentioned in his most recent CR vid. Send a message to the regs early i’m not going to let them run me over when i’m likely stealing from LP.
2. Am i playing too passive in 3-way pots? I am usually just giving up in 3-way pots if i have something like AK and J72 flies off. So 100% of the time if i’m betting there i have at least a pair. My betting range on those flops is usually TT, JJ, QQ, KK, AA, AJ, JK, JQ, JT, J9. I think i’m folding a majority of that range to a serious show of strength. I need to balance my 3-way pot range a little more i think. Perhaps i need to start reconsidering my opponents likely ranges and their calling/raising ranges rather than just take a blind stab.
3. C-betting at low percentage flops. Lets say i raise UTG and the flop comes A23. This might seem like a good spot for a utg raiser to bet to the untrained eye but its a terrible spot. I’m usually betting 100% of my holdings on this flop trying to represent the small percentage of my range that actually hits it. Maybe i should start checking these kinds of boards more. It seems that villains play back on these often, and rightfully so imo. My utg raising range typically is, AK+ 22+. That’s it. So that means only AA, AK, 22, 33 are the hands i will continue with. AK gets a little tougher too, because if i face serious opposition, I often times laydown to a likely setminer turned nutsholder. The problem really turns into i will be check/folding alot of pots on these flops. I will consider this problem, because once i figure out the answer, i can use the counter to that answer to make more money against players making the same mistake i was.
4. Seeing too many flops/raising too much. I just noticed my normal 13/10 style turned into a 15/12 style for this last session. My overall aggression factor was much higher than it normally is as well. I know this isn’t a good thing as my hands were not flopping today. I was bluffing more and betting more marginal spots and exercising less pot control. I think this is another key that leads to these sessions. I need to focus on tightening my ranges.

There is a style of play that when it clicks for me, is perfect. I have it in me some days and others it would seem i don’t. I sometimes just go into uncreative ringer mode and just player hands faceup. I need to start finding the keys to being that correct playing ringer who can tear the 2/4 tables apart. Alright, i feel alot better after that shitty session after coming up with a slight gameplan and getting out of the ‘i’m so unlucky’ mindset. I am not so unlucky there’s a reason i’m getting into spots i am, and today i don’t think my style was optimal.

Yesterday was one of the most unbearable days of work i’ve suffered through. I seriously just hated it for some reason and was in no mood for sitting around and being the corporate bitch. Anyways, i slaved through the day. The likely reason why i was so anxious at work was the 2 cups of coffee i slugged down. Caffeine always seems to make me wanna wig out.

so i get the e-mail from a good friend of mine in the office that he wants to grab a beer at 6 (when we get off). I’m always down for a beer after work especially since our office is literally attached to Cans in downtown charlotte. We get there and start having some beers and half-price potato skins. Keep in mind, this activity replaces my normal monday evening gym time. SHIT! I ain’t helping my pool cause eh?

We get about 2 beers deep and i’m starting to think about leaving because i don’t want to get wasted on a monday night. About this time, a girl comes over asking if we’d like to play ‘rockstar bingo’. Obviously, no one has a clue what she is talking about but we decide to give it a shot and have another beer. The game is basically like real bingo just with songs in the spaces. So when they play a song, you mark it out and when you get bingo you win. Throw the 2 beers out the window. I got bombed. Killed about 9 beers all in all. Rockstar Bingo was a clever way to get us to stay at the bar. It wasn’t all bad though. We had a blast and I got to meet a few new people in my office as well. I finally end up leaving after wasting my entire evening out at the bar. (wasting… get it?)

I get home and of course am bombed and decide that i don’t have my IronMan Points. LOL. Ok let me first say, whoever came up with this promotion on FullTilt needs to get a promotion and a big one. I know i play when i don’t feel like it because of this stupid thing. Anyways, i 12 table 200nl completely bombed. Sure enough, i manage to give away $400 in the process. I actually took a really sick beat for $200 with a runner-flush over runner-flush. Moral of the story is being an ironman really isn’t worth playing bombed haha. However, it was fun and I had a great night.

Congratulations to Ragingquads_ (darkchek_ on ftp) on finally winning his seat to the world series!

He has gotten second in that tourney something like 3 times and finally pulled the hammer last night. You are a sick sick tournament man. Now, if i could just win 12k in a night.

This article is a continuation of Part 1 from a June 3rd, 2008 post.

Last time, I discussed a few game selection and very general concepts of playing PLO (Pot Limit Omaha). After reading that article a few times and receiving feedback, I think that article has a few concepts that people didn’t necessarily think about. I think this article will have some more specific Omaha tips and should therefore be a better article for a FRNLHE (Full Ring No Limit Holdem) player to start to wrap their head around PLO.

You have found the perfect omaha game. You have a table full of deepstacked 1 tablers, and a bankroll of 100 buyins. Now how the heck do you play this game? (and no i’m not going to explain the rules, if you don’t know those please stop reading). Now take the maximum number of FRNLHE tables you play, and cut that in half. That’s the correct number of omaha tables to play. You have so much action/thought at all times, that mass-multitabling is almost impossible. Unlike FRNLHE, there are many many situations that warrant you stopping everything and thinking about that table and bet.

Omaha Preflop:
Let me start this section by saying there are many correct ways to play omaha pre-flop. This happens to be my preferred method at mid-stakes omaha.

Concepts:

Postion is God in PLO – if you don’t know what i mean you soon will (random: just make me think of that old barenaked ladies song)

We want to play hands that give us the best possible way to make the nuts.

It is rather easy to outplay our opponents postflop in position as it is typically difficult to continue out of position without the nuts or a monster draw (which your opponent won’t have most of the time).

Hands we fold:

• Hands Overloaded in one suit – If you have 4 clubs and an AQ45, your hand really loses alot of value unless you are stealing on the button. The optimal number of a suit in your hand is 2. If you have more or less, its bad typically. You are less likely to make your flush draw and therefor you have less opportunities to make a real hand
• Completely Unconnected Garbage – An adage that has stuck with me is the following: If you can’t make at least 2 playable holdem hands out of your omaha hand, your hand is a fold. This has been one of those tips i picked up along the way that I pretty much use all the time. When i’m not sure if i should play a hand, i just default to that rule and actually try to pick 2 hands out i’d like to play in that spot. So for example JT36 is not a playable hand even if double suited (unless from the button in which case its likely a raise).

Hands we open-raise:

• Double Suited Connectors – aka 8s9sTc6c – Hands like these flop amazingly well or amazingly terrible. However alot of the hands we make aren’t going to be the nuts (but they will be close), so we want to put pressure on our opponents and hopefully get few players to the flop.
• Hands that draw to the nuts – These are my favorites. Hands like As9s7c8d which don’t seem like monsters are really amazing hands. You wake up with just silly combo draws on a regular basis when seeing the flops with these kinds of hands. You have a number of straight draws and the nut flush draw in your hand.
• Basically anything that isn’t complete garbage on the button – This is just common sense. Having position alone is usually enough to win the hands, so with that in mind, we take our position unless we have a hand which simply has no chance of flopping well.
• Since position is so important, we are opening pretty much any hands that have 2 playable holdem hands from the CO and Button. We are also c-betting at a headsup pot no matter what and likely check/folding a multi-way pot unless we flop a real hand.

It is so tough play hands out of position in omaha that pretty much raising any cards that aren’t complete rags and c-betting is profitable. Players typically avoid playing out of position postflop without a big hand.

Hands to 3-bet with:

• AAxx – this is kind of a no-brainer but let me bring your brain into this one. Don’t 4-bet AAxx unless you can get 40% of your stack in pre-flop against multi-person fields. You will have no choice but to get it allin on the flop usually. It is sometimes correct to just smooth call a 3-bet with AAxx, there are a few reasons for this. First, it doesn’t define your hand to your opponent completely. Your opponent can flop 2 pair dueces and 4’s on a 24K board after you 4-bet and be VERY sure its good whereas if you put pressure on without giving away AA you get alot of fold equity by trying to get it in on the flop. Also, you can really disguise your hand. If the flop comes Ahigh, you really get alot of spots where you can let your opponent bluff pot on the flop of an Ahigh board because he thinks he’s represnting AAxx. Generally we are trying to get all our money in pre-flop with AAxx but if we can’t get enough of it in to commit ourselves post- we are really giving value away and playing our hand face-up against an opponent with a wide range.
• Sneaky hands. Sneaky hands in position is the place i win most of my money. I define sneaky hands as those which don’t hit the kind of board our opponent thinks our hand would hit from our 3-bet. I love 3-betting hands like 3h5h4d8d or 234s5s. These kinds of hands never are seen coming and still hit a high number of flops. When we flop the nuts on a 256 flop, our opponents usually think we have AAxx due to our 3-bet and think its a great flop for making a play (which typically it is). We also take down alot of pots we don’t hit especially A-high boards. Opponents are so quick to put you on a monster pair that they often just avoid giving any action on an A-high board in a 3-bet pot. So by c-betting alot of boards we don’t hit, our opponents just give up. Make sure you have a hand that can call a 4-bet tho so make sure your hand can play well against AAxx. This leads me to my next point.
• You don’t want to 3-bet a hand that doesn’t play well against AAxx or KKxx. Players make the mistake of raising hands like AK45 or AJT4. I think these are very poor choices for isolating and really look strong to the untrained eye but seem to be the equivalent of KJ in holdem.

That should just about sum-up my pre-flop ideas on PLO. And that will sum up part 2. I realize this one is kind of all over the board, but I wrote it over a few days so i appologize if i left something out. If you have a question or think i’m full of it, please write it in my comments.

I had a pretty eventful weekend and have been loungin around all sunday. I went out to the pool and was just bummin around slammed beers. Its been outrageously hot in charlotte. I’ve never had a full summer here but its just the beginning of june and already it was over 100 today. I think that broke the record for hottest temperature ever today. It was very nice to just lay by the pool and soak in the rays. The pool does always remind me that i need to get my lazy ass back in the gym tho. I use to be a twig and now i’m starting to get a belly. Oh well, I’m sure it will come off pretty easy if i just work at it.

I stayed in on Friday night and player poker all night. I love playing the drunks at 3am when i’m stone sober. Honestly, guys just giving money away. Like This:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2730984

Seriously, it was great. I ended up having the best night of my short lived poker career. I made just around 3.5k and that was with my very last hand being an $800 pot with my KK vs. AA allin pre-. I was pissed that that was my last hand. It was pretty fitting though as i didn’t run into that situation once all night. I played again today, and felt good on the tables. I have found a leak in my $ won without showdown numbers. I had like -4k won without showdown in may and i think that’s a huge leak. Let me say first tho, my style of play does involve alot of showdowns as i typically know my opponents hands and am setting traps. However, i have managed to keep my number close to $0 this month so far. I think that’s solid. Baby steps right? I don’t really know much about $ won without showdown numbers or even what is reasonable. I am pretty new to the whole stats and charts thing, so i’m getting use to it and obviously improving along the way. Here’s my graph for june so far:

I think that’s a good looking graph for a tag but if its not please let me know cause i have no idea.

Here’s my numbers so far…

Everything looks good i think.

Hopefully that’s a nice update for ya. Also, i’ve been cashing out using check on FTP. The checks show up in like a week. Its awesome. I think i’m gonna stick with this method of cashing out. Later guys.

I have offically booked my Vegas trip for the summer. I will be staying with one of my good poker friends, one of whom is actually a guy i’ve hung out with in real life before. He goes by the handle CoastalPGM, and is a balla MTT player. Big thanks to him for letting me and vizer02 crash at his place.

I will be in Las Vegas from June 25th to July 2nd!!!!

So if you are there, please leave a comment, i’d love to meet up with some FR FTP players or hell just about anyone serious poker players. Lata.

I recently had a conversation with an old friend who’s been kinda out of the poker world for a year. He was telling me that one of his friends is very into PLO, and he was trying to convince him why the game was no good. Obviously, i was appauled. PLO bad for you? Hell no. So i’ve decided to write a series about PLO and how to play PLO as a FR nit.

Pot Limit Omaha is the best game online right now, in my opinion. I actually think that one is impossible to argue. There’s more action, more players who don’t have a grasp on the game playing. Honestly, I love Pot Limit omaha so much that I am often tempted to make it my full time game. The problem I find with making PLO my full time game is the swings. I personally don’t like losing more than 5 buyins at a time, and in PLO this can happen so fast you don’t have time to blink.

I use pot limit omaha as an excellent way to mix up my days. I find some days, i just don’t want to play with all the regulars at 2/4. I think its a great way to keep your sanity. If i am having a pretty big losing day, and the next day feel like i’m worth nothing at holdem. (i say next day because i don’t get on the tables later on after a big losing session) But after those kinds of days, i just don’t feel right at the holdem tables. So i often go play 6 tables of PLO.

Here’s the Damn Ringer Rules for Deciding what Pot Limit Omaha to play:

1. Have 100 buyins for the game you want to play. PERIOD. If you are playing at all scared at PLO, you will lose. 100 buyins is a must. I usually play one stake less than my FR NLHE stake. So i play 1/2 PLO, and need 20,000 in my bankroll to do so. Don’t play 0.50/1.00PLO with a bankroll of 5k.
2. Table Select. Table. Select. You don’t have to preach to me about higher stakes having no choice of table selecting. PLO at just about every stake has an amazing number of recreational players. Search out players with full buyins, who aren’t playing more than 2 tables. These are your ATM. These players likely have no idea what PLO is all about, and can be exploited.
3. Regulars. Take the time before sitting at new PLO games, to figure out who the regulars are. There aren’t many. The regulars, however, are usually very seasoned, and untiltable. Untiltable is not the kind of players you want to play in omaha. I can’t tell you how much profit i’ve made off of guys who i’ve tilted in omaha, its like 3 times more than i’ve made tilting players in holdem. You hit a 40/60 draw against their top set, and they will donate another $800 to table cause they are so tilted. Regulars don’t do this. Omaha is one of the easiest games to tilt from, don’t play emotionally sound players who are bankrolled for the game. They are avoidable for the most part, so avoid them. The difference between donkey and regular in PLO isn’t just the difference of skill, but also the difference of tiltability as well. Remember that bad players are far more likely to reload in PLO than in NLHE, because they will feel like they got bad beated far more often, because outplaying someone in omaha looks so different than outplaying someone in PLO, from the untrained eye.
4. Forget about FR PLO. Being the nit that i am, I love the nuts. Its pretty much why I play full ring. I don’t like marginal situations, i like to deal with as few of them as possible. You don’t need to play FR PLO, its BORING. 6-max PLO is the way to go. Play your position. You don’t have to worry about 2-barreling AJ on a KT4 board after the BB called your flop bet. You can play your position and not worry about spots like this. For pot limit omaha being so agressive, you’d be very surprised how much checking there is in the mid-stakes. You will find a comfort at PLO 6-max as a FR nit much like i did. Its a surprisingly easy transition.
5. Datamine. You will find guys who have 70/4 stats. Seriously, you will find alot of them. This goes along with the regulars section, but is different. If you haven’t spent the $55 on Pokertracker Omaha, wtf are you waiting for? Its completely worth it and works with PAHUD. A common thought process with donkeys is ‘i don’t need to raise, i’ll limp and play for the nuts’. Find these players. Your position will dominate them.

That should be all you need to know about finding the right PLO game. Next Part i will write about the actual play of PLO. I’m by no means claiming to be an expert at PLO but i know enough to beat 1/2plo. Its worth taking the time to learn the game. This is the holdem of 2004 on Party Poker. Its still here, if you want to stop grinding your gears at NLHE, take a break in the PLO oasis. Good luck.

Don’t you think there’s a reason all the high stakes games run at PLO nowadays?

Alright this month is kinda gonna be fucked as far as showing my results. I don’t have all the hands from this month in a database, so i will have to go off of my blog posts about winnings and losings up until the days i started using PT3. I actually ran pretty poorly for the last half of april. I started using pokertracker 3 on May 15th. I ran at about 1.50bb/100 at 400nl where i spent most of my time. This is one of the worst win rates I’ve had in a month over a decent size. No worries tho, i feel like i played well just things didn’t always go great for me. I’m gonna start running a report template each month for my blog. This is the first shot at the template so it might change in the coming months slightly. However, i will use this to analyze my results. Since I only have 17 days on my pokertracker tho, it won’t be completely accurate this month.

Top 3 Biggest Winning Hand:

1. KK – +3,529
2. AA – +2,609
3. AK – +1,857

Comments: This definitely feels right. Over the sample size of 25k hands, i’ve got top tier hands as my biggest winners. No surprise there.

Top 3 Biggest Losers:

1. 89s – -$639
2. AKs – -$603
3. 55 – -$467

Comments: 89s is actually very surprising. Its one of my favorite hands to play. This is probably why its such a big loser tho. I also skewed my results by having one big loser of -$400 in a pot with milanogal712 where i shoved a straight draw and flush draw. She/he did make a hero’s call with top pair for 100bb however, and it held. AKs would have been even if i hadn’t of lost a $600 pot which was a pretty sick call/bad beat. I moved allin with AKcc with a club draw and really looking like i had AA/KK. I got snap called by JJ for those that don’t remember me posting about the hand. 55 however, looks like a legitimate leak. I lost no significant pot, nor won any significant pots. This likely isn’t a bad leak, as i’m setmining with small PP’s often and 55 could have just been the one this month that i didn’t hit a set with. But it would still appear I am playing the hand a little too liberally.

Filters:

• All PP’s : +10,297
• Suited Connectors and 1 Gappers: +$773
• Off-suited Connectors and 1 Gappers: +1,059.95
• Multi-way pots: -$2,951
• Pots in which i’ve 3-bet preflop – +1,176
• Pots in which i’ve attempted to steal – +$569

Comments: The pocket pair number is pretty. Suited Connectors and 1 Gappers, is a good number as well. Its great to see that I’m not losing alot of value on these types of connector hands. These are a large part of my stealing range which proves that these are definitely profitable for me to keep playing. My Multiway pots number is not a good one. It really never has been a good number to be honest with you. I think i’m gonna start working on getting that number up while i’m playing next month and be very conscious of what kind of hands i’m playing multi-way pots with, because clearly i think i’m playing the wrong kinds of hands. Also, this is a problem if i open and get more than one caller with a hand like AK and miss the flop. Perhaps, i’m not continuation betting enough in these spots when i missed the flop and its unlikely my opponents missed as well. It seems that mentally if i see more than 2 players call, and i miss the flop, i’m done with the hand. Perhaps, i should reevaluate that. 3-bet pots, that’s a good number. I am very happy that in pots that i 3-bet i’m being profitable, however i don’t think i’m being quite profitable enough. Again, this is something i think i will try to bring up next month. And the attempted to steal, i like that number just being positive. I think that’s all you need is for that to be positive, as if you are stealing regularly and profitably you have a good image from other positions, I think if this number is postive thats exactly where i want it.

Graph:

Comments: Guess where the -$2.2k session is. haha. Seriously, this graph is very annoying and to be pretty honest with you, it was as frustrating as it looks. I felt like a complete failure at points this month, but i struggled through it and ended up turning a decent profit at the end of the month. I wish i had the first portion of the month in this graph so that i could show everyone exactly how well i did run. I will calculate total winnings for the month after this section.

General Tab:

Actual Money Made On the Month:

Poker: +10,022

Rakeback: +1,081

Total May Winnings: +11,103

Comments: This is a pretty fuzzy number. I am taking my blog for face value from the rest of the month. I don’t know if that’s exactly the number but i went ahead and assumed I was $500 less than the numbers i ballparked in my blog as likely i didn’t report 2 or 3 small losing sessions. This would likely come to somewhere around a $500 loss. So like i said, this number is a little fuzzy, but its right within $400. Next month i won’t have to worry about all that jazz, as i have a database, and goddamnit it will work next month. Rakeback is pretty standard as well. A pretty good month, even while i was frustrated and not running very well for the last half. Hope you all enjoyed my new monthly report style, please leave comments letting me know what you think of it.