Poker Tournaments are Stupid

With that in mind, here are some NL cash hands. They're cool because they don't read I had 7xBB and shoved 74o and got called by AA. Actually tournaments are pretty OK too, but I suck at them or something. Also I'm not playing a lot of them again tomorrow because I have basketball (intramurals prboably just saved me 5K) so I figured I'd go for this instead of a Sunday report. First an interesting hand where I should have folded a set.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?955755 - It was Full Tilt so I couldn't timebank the river and I had a set, which I'm not exactly in the habit of folding when the only reasonable hand I lose to is a bigger set. In retrospect I think the river is a clear fold as my line is usually a monster or air, and he's a strong enough player to basically never raise a worse hand for value (even KQ just calls my big river bet probably). There's also basically no way he can ever have a bluff here (especially since marginal hands can just call not raise because they beat the nothing part of my range and he almost always has some part of the board by the river). That leaves a lot of sets in his range even when you discount KK/QQ some.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?955760 - Another turned set stacks me. I played this one correctly of course but I've been running hot enough that this hasn't happened to me too much.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?955772 - I go for the bet/3-bet line with my big draw (I do the same with sets a lot too for balance) but can't get him off his overpair and brick my 12 outer. Pretty standard aggressive play.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?955786 - Impossibly strong vs impossibly strong as Phil Laak says. He gets there on the river though. Fortunately this next hand happened shortly after against the same guy:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?955791 - I guess maybe he thought I was steaming because that's a pretty sick calldown.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?955798 - Kinda boring, sometimes I'm on the right side of the coolers. Folding to my 4-bet is not unreasonable, but I definitely might do this as a bluff sometimes so it's probably not a big mistake to just get it in.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?955805 - I think this guy was tilting or something because he played another hand really badly in a big pot earlier in the session. Surprisingly he seemed to play pretty well in another session today so I'm not sure if he's good or not. Against some players I would fold the turn, but the way he was playing that session along with my general annoying aggressive image I knew I'd have an easy call if he pushed over my turn bet.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?955810 - The preflop call is probably a small mistake in general, but I'm getting pretty good implied odds and felt he was very strong here, and also didn't seem like the type to ever get away from an overpair if I hit.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?955812 - Another big pair vs big pair hand. I checked the turn going for the checkraise since I figured most draws usually bluff there and other worse hands will have a hard time calling a big bet. I'm not sure I like his turn bet, but I definitely can't fold since there's enough draws and various other things I beat that play it the same.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?955818 - Yay.

Anyways I always seem to post hands where someone gets stacked because they're the most fun, though often not the most educational. It's probably the only time I've ever picked fun over education.

Mike