Went down to AC over the weekend to try my luck at live poker. Obviously that’s when my downswing decided to come. I played somewhere around 30 hours and never saw AA once, had one KK where an A flopped, no QQ.
I thought I made decent adjustments but obviously wasn’t used to playing against a table of donks and regs adjusting to donks, but it’s tough to win money when you can’t flop TP. A few times in the beginning I v-towned myself because I haven’t yet learned that people can check TP down on flop and turn and not even bet the riv, so I’d bet my MP and get owned. Then I didn’t read a couple of situations correctly and misplayed (like calling a minraise with a set not realizing they’re block-raising their FD).
I kept getting on good tables and tried to get position on megadonks asap, but then I’d go card dead and they’d go broke to everyone else. No particularly interesting spots, and no spectacular bad beats. I finished down about $100 and another $150 in food/hotel.
Overall it’s probably been a good experience because it let me get a bit into the heads of donks, so I should fare better against the weekend warriors online. For the past few years, my only poker analysis has come from good/thinking players so I was a bit out of touch with how the average joe approaches poker.
Filed under: Sessions
where did you play? i was at AC over the weekend (playing fri night / sat during the day) and was at borgata
Friday at Borgata (~6ish to 3AM), I was at a couple of 1/2 tables near the cashier window. Sat/sun at the Trop.
same on friday if i remember right — what were you wearing? lol if i was at your table
white nike shirt, blue shorts, nerdy white guy with no hat/sunglasses. I had a couple of asian friends come up to me, one went busto with 99s to some asian chick that I later c/shoved with tptk after weird deliberation.
different table then, but I was probably sitting pretty closely to you. small world.
damn, but it was probably better for you. The tables I was at were somewhat manageable in terms of donkability, so I 3-bet super-light vs anybody who looked half-decent figuring they’re expecting 3b=monster live. Sat and Sun were total donkfests though so even if I 3-bet a decent player, two other morons would call with J5s.
yeah i didnt get into 3betting light because nobody was freaking raising! tables were very likely made up of 70/5’s, pretty insane. $2/5 wasnt much better, people just try to limp / hit. i think that iso raising is even a bit sketchy because you need to make it more to get the job done, so it really affects stack:pot — if one guy calls, a ton are going to and you have no FE with a draw.
still good games though!
Yeah, if I had more money I’d play 2/5 just to have villain ranges resemble more to what I’m used to. At 1/2 you literally can’t assign ranges at all, I had people call me down with 22 the whole way or overs, so I can totally see how online donks can fear weird scare cards and runner-runner draws that don’t make any sense to have for us given our play. I’m sure it’s about the same at 2/5, but it’s probably a bit better because you get a couple of average TAGs that can be exploited and won’t end up nl-schooling you with the donks.
I really think at 1/2 the right reasons to bet a draw is to block and for deception if you hit. Generally 3+ go to the flop, so you have no FE on anything so that’s not a good reason to bet, and you’re very likely to never see the players again so range balancing isn’t good enough either.
I used to play a lot more live, and it’s absolutely frustrating when you’re card dead because you can only really play for value at anything 2/5 and below. Sample sizes are so freaking small, too, so if you’re cold for a little bit, that can basically wreck your whole night. One thing I learned (applies to me)….never play 6m online after a live session….talk about different gears!
Whoops, that last reply was from me. I have a WP account that I hardly ever use
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