I’ve been in San Francisco to play in the WPT Bay 101 tournament and visit my brothers. Unfortunately, I busted out pretty early in the WPT event. Max lasted closer to the end of day 1 but busted before the day ended as well. It really blows because I love live tournaments a lot, I wish I was in it for longer just for the experience of playing.

Thankfully, it gave me time to play some online and its been paying off. I’m up about 50k on the trip. Mostly HU cash, and mostly from today.

I had a match against a guy I have played a fair amount before. His sn is IKA258. Honest assesment: He’s a pretty solid player. He’s not a guy I’m thrilled to play but I’ve had a strong desire to challenge myself against good players. I’ve had that desire because as I’ve stated before, I feel like I’m playing the best poker I’ve played in my career, and I think I can beat almost anyone right now.

To be fair, here is a total cooler hand on his side.

PokerStars Game #59371024427:  Hold’em No Limit ($25/$50 USD) – 2011/03/17 16:28:16 PT [2011/03/17 19:28:16 ET]

Table ‘Aurora XII’ 2-max Seat #1 is the button

Seat 1: heybude ($10315.50 in chips)

Seat 2: IKA258 ($12007.50 in chips)

heybude: posts small blind $25

IKA258: posts big blind $50

*** HOLE CARDS ***

Dealt to heybude [8c Ad]

heybude: raises $50 to $100

IKA258: raises $300 to $400

heybude: calls $300

*** FLOP *** [Jh Ah 8s]

IKA258: bets $500

heybude: raises $750 to $1250

IKA258: calls $750

*** TURN *** [Jh Ah 8s] [3s]

IKA258: checks

heybude: bets $1850

IKA258: calls $1850

*** RIVER *** [Jh Ah 8s 3s] [As]

IKA258: checks

heybude: bets $6815.50 and is all-in

IKA258: calls $6815.50

*** SHOW DOWN ***

heybude: shows [8c Ad] (a full house, Aces full of Eights)

IKA258: shows [Js Jd] (a full house, Jacks full of Aces)

heybude collected $20630.50 from pot

*** SUMMARY ***

Total pot $20631 | Rake $0.50

Board [Jh Ah 8s 3s As]

Seat 1: heybude (button) (small blind) showed [8c Ad] and won ($20630.50) with a full house, Aces full of Eights

Seat 2: IKA258 (big blind) showed [Js Jd] and lost with a full house, Jacks full of Aces

But otherwise, I had some pretty sick hands. Here’s two great ones with analysis.

Hand 1: Well executed bluff catch

PokerStars Game #59367692400:  Hold’em No Limit ($25/$50 USD) – 2011/03/17 15:22:23 PT [2011/03/17 18:22:23 ET]

Table ‘Natascha VII’ 2-max Seat #2 is the button

Seat 1: heybude ($5696.50 in chips)

Seat 2: IKA258 ($9067 in chips)

IKA258: posts small blind $25

heybude: posts big blind $50

*** HOLE CARDS ***

Dealt to heybude [8s Kc]

IKA258: raises $100 to $150

heybude: calls $100 (standard)

*** FLOP *** [7s Ac As]

heybude: checks

IKA258: bets $250

heybude: raises $450 to $700 (Not that standard. He has been checking behind weak and medium sd value hands like bottom and mid pair, he could very well check king high, low pocket pairs, and 7′s. I could just call and call down some run outs but I think I’m getting a lot of folds flat out.)

IKA258: calls $450

*** TURN *** [7s Ac As] [Qh]

heybude: bets $1100 (I bet here because I had been c/ring and c/feding the turn a lot and because he has so much air in his cbet range that I think I have enough FE. C/c the turn also seems legitimate and actually seems better in hindsight. Although it involves more river soul reading.)

IKA258: calls $1100

*** RIVER *** [7s Ac As Qh] [3c]

heybude: checks (I can’t represent anything so I check)

IKA258: bets $7117 and is all-in (My instant thought is call here because I was too overwhelmed with reasons why he doesn’t have anything. One, I thought he was likely to play a fd like this the entire way. Two, I think it’s probable he 3bets the flop with various A’s because he tends to try to represent bluffs with his nut hands. Three, he goes all in, slightly overbetting the pot, while in previous hands with nut hands he bet under all in. Finally, there are tons of combos of flush draws he could have, much more than the combinations of nut hands that I think he rarely has here.)

heybude: calls $3746.50 and is all-in

Uncalled bet ($3370.50) returned to IKA258

*** SHOW DOWN ***

IKA258: shows [2s 4s] (a pair of Aces)

heybude: shows [8s Kc] (a pair of Aces – King kicker)

heybude collected $11392.50 from pot

*** SUMMARY ***

Total pot $11393 | Rake $0.50

Board [7s Ac As Qh 3c]

Seat 1: heybude (big blind) showed [8s Kc] and won ($11392.50) with a pair of Aces

Seat 2: IKA258 (button) (small blind) showed [2s 4s] and lost with a pair of Aces

Hand 2: Pretty standard bluff

PokerStars Game #59371729421:  Hold’em No Limit ($25/$50 USD) – 2011/03/17 16:42:57 PT [2011/03/17 19:42:57 ET]

Table ‘Natascha VII’ 2-max Seat #2 is the button

Seat 1: heybude ($6573 in chips)

Seat 2: IKA258 ($15368.50 in chips)

IKA258: posts small blind $25

heybude: posts big blind $50

*** HOLE CARDS ***

Dealt to heybude [As Qh]

IKA258: raises $100 to $150

heybude: raises $350 to $500

IKA258: calls $350

*** FLOP *** [5s 6d 4d]

heybude: bets $500 (Standard at this point. I think if I check I get bluffed off my hand too much, especially since it seems like every time I have checked in a 3bet pot he has bet and I’ve folded. This is also is a great hand to double barrel with on good turn cards.)

IKA258: calls $500

*** TURN *** [5s 6d 4d] [9d]

heybude: bets $1350 (I think this is a spot where a lot of people c/f. But I bet because the 9 and the flush is basically a blank for his range and hit my range. It’s thin, especially because the profitability of this play is dependent on a planned 3 barrel on certain run outs, which includes most diamonds that hit. He has been unafraid to call me down in these spots but this hand has come after a long time of me tripling in a 3bet pot and having it)

IKA258: calls $1350

*** RIVER *** [5s 6d 4d 9d] [Js]

heybude: bets $4223 and is all-in (Basically, another perfect card for my range and blank for his. It’s not really a question at this point.)

IKA258: folds

Uncalled bet ($4223) returned to heybude

heybude collected $4699.50 from pot

heybude: doesn’t show hand

………………………………………………..

Just letting you know, from 10-12 ET right now, I will be on ESPN 2 for the WSOPE ME.

VPP for the week: ~118k

VPP total: 359,071.12

It was a week of records for me. Most VPPs in a day, most VPPs  in a week, most money made in a week so far this year.

Playing well and making money are going to make it easy to feel good about my game, this challenge, and this years potential. It hasn’t been like this all year. I have doubted myself, my game selection decisions, my vpp goal, and my ability. But today I don’t doubt any of that. It’s hard not to doubt it at times when I’ve been playing badly and getting unlucky. However, during those times I have to remember; playing badly for periods will happen, losing money will happen, and making bad decisions will happen. What I need to keep in mind is that just because these things are happening every so often, it doesn’t mean that they will keep happening. I’ve proven to myself over 5 years that with the days I lose 1/3rd of my bankroll, the months I don’t play well, and the long unlucky stretches, that these are simply parts of a journey of a winning year and career. And even at times where long term results haven’t been there, I work very hard and have a great strategy for learning and improving at this game. It is only a matter of time until good results start coming.

On the same note, I do feel like I played the best this week I have played all year. I worked very hard on improving the quality of play when I 6 table and I made some big strides. I even was comfortable playing up to 8 tables at times. The key was I started to breakdown what parts of my thought process when playing my A+ game gets lost when playing a lot of tables. I came up with two major points.

1. How will my opponent react to each possible action.

2. What specific hands did the turn or river improve or not improve.

These are both essential thoughts before making a marginal decision, but they are both the hardest to do when playing a lot of tables. At times, I was able to think of them during most of my marginal decisions. Sometimes, I lost those thoughts completely. It’s certainly harder to think well with a lot of tables than 1 or 2 tables, but I am confident if I keep focused on improving that my mind will get better and better at it and my quality of play will continue to improve.

………………

It seems that PT3 can do chip EV graphs now (or could always do them, just figured it out today). I had a pleasant or unpleasant surprise, depending on how you look at it. I am 105,000 chips below expectation, which essentially means I should be up 70 buy ins more than I am currently up.

It’s nice to see that my results should be better than they are if luck evens out, because it reaffirms the idea that my play this year has been as good as I thought it’s been. It’s also nice because  the EV evened out results are quite good given the amount of tables I play.

I’m ready to have more weeks like this.

I played Isildur against across 6 tables and this time it went badly. I went 11-21 over 32 games, for a grand 2 day total of 56-62. It’s not as bad as it sounds, as I had most of my action taken. But I think its the last time I’m going to play him.

Today, I got less lucky than yesterday, but I also did not play as well and he played a lot better. There was one big mistake he was making yesterday that he shored up today that closed up my edge against him a lot. I felt like I played spectacularly yesterday, but today I just played pretty good. Prittay, prittay, prittay good. And what can you do when your opponent wins 60% @SD.

He did one thing very badly the entire time I’ve played him, a mistake that is well documented and I suppose speaks of a degenerate gambler within him: He rarely 3bets and folds. I was 4betting a tight range the entire time I played him and he would repeatedly get it in with Q8s or K6s or random hands like that.

There were other things he did that were kind of bad. But are his big mistakes and small mistakes enough to justify an edge against him, even when he does so many other things so well? Possibly, but not enough I think to make me want to continue to play him, and nor enough to justify anyone buying my action.

Anyways, it was good while it lasted. There were a lot of positives to take away from all this. One, a lot of VPPs (Cha ching!). Two, I learned a lot from playing him as opposed to watching him. Specifically, he did a lot of things as far as value betting goes that were a lot different than how I normally played but made a lot of sense. Lastly, I’m still having a good week. I’m up a good chunk and have earned a lot of rakeback on top of that.

I’m not going to lie, it was depressing to lose to him today. But I’m hoping this is only a small blip to a good year.

I just finished up my poker session today, and I made 51,535 VPPs for the day. A new personal record. You may be wondering how this is remotely possible? Well, the answer is Isildur.

I have felt like I probably had an edge vs Isildur at Hu sngs, because as I had seen from hands that my friends had shown me, he randomly and quite often will decide to get it all in preflop with a terrible hand. Nonetheless, I have the utmost respect for his deepstack play. From watching him I don’t doubt he is one of the best heads up cash players in the world.  But this respect is a curse for me. When I feel like I am playing someone “better” than me, I tend to play pretty badly. I start to think that this better player is going to know when I’m bluffing and will be capable of bluffing me in most spots I’m not expecting, which causes me to play passive and stationy. It is true that a better player will bluff and catch bluffs better than an average player, but not to the degree of perfection in my mind.  They are not all knowing.

But recently a fellow poker player wanted to buy some of my action against him, and I decided it was time to seek him out. Lucky for me, today I saw him at an open lobby.

Before we started, I asked some poker buddies who had played him before for advice. The gist of the advice I got was that he was really bad late game, but nothing too specific. The consensus was that he was terrible.

After playing him for an hour I began to see the specific ways that he played badly and adjusted appropriately. Some of the ways he played badly were really surprising to me. Some of them were pretty expected. I don’t want to go into the adjustments because pointing them out will encourage people to give him action and I, selfishly, want to get his action all to myself. Sorry .

As far as quality of play goes, I felt like overall I played really well against him. I think I only got caught in a big bluff once and I made a lot of them. My thinking didn’t get clouded by his aggression and overbetting. I was still able to make some big folds which I’m almost positive were the correct ones. We eventually got up to 6 tables at once and I don’t think my play deteriorated all that much at that many tables. I guess it’s a testament to mass multi tabling all the time. Some interesting hands.

1. A big fold, but after discussing it with a few people I’m sure it was the correct one.

Seat 1: heybude (1450 in chips)
Seat 2: Isildur1 (1550 in chips)
heybude: posts small blind 10
Isildur1: posts big blind 20
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to heybude [7d 9h]
heybude: raises 20 to 40
Isildur1: calls 20
*** FLOP *** [6d Kh 7h]
Isildur1: checks
heybude: bets 40
Isildur1: raises 80 to 120
heybude: calls 80
*** TURN *** [6d Kh 7h] [Th]
Isildur1: bets 220
heybude: calls 220
*** RIVER *** [6d Kh 7h Th] [7s]
Isildur1: bets 1170 and is all-in
heybude: folds

2. A big bluff

PokerStars Game #57381030684: Tournament #362796393, $5500+$100 USD Hold’em No Limit – Match Round I, Level I (10/20) – 2011/02/09 9:59:31 PT [2011/02/09 12:59:31 ET]
Table ’362796393 1′ 2-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: heybude (1440 in chips)
Seat 2: Isildur1 (1560 in chips)
heybude: posts small blind 10
Isildur1: posts big blind 20
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to heybude [Kc Qs]
heybude: raises 20 to 40
Isildur1: calls 20
*** FLOP *** [7d 2d 3c]
Isildur1: checks
heybude: bets 40
Isildur1: calls 40
*** TURN *** [7d 2d 3c] [8h]
Isildur1: bets 120
heybude: raises 220 to 340
Isildur1: calls 220
*** RIVER *** [7d 2d 3c 8h] [Tc]
Isildur1: checks
heybude: bets 1020 and is all-in
Isildur1: folds

3. I took a bizarre line here but I like my river bluff

Seat 1: heybude (1840 in chips)
Seat 2: Isildur1 (1160 in chips)
Isildur1: posts small blind 15
heybude: posts big blind 30
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to heybude [3h 4h]
Isildur1: raises 30 to 60
heybude: calls 30
*** FLOP *** [Kh 7c 6h]
heybude: checks
Isildur1: bets 60
heybude: calls 60
*** TURN *** [Kh 7c 6h] [Qd]
heybude: checks
Isildur1: bets 180
heybude: calls 180
*** RIVER *** [Kh 7c 6h Qd] [9c]
heybude: bets 510
Isildur1: folds

4. To be fair, one that didn’t work

Seat 1: Isildur1 (1220 in chips)
Seat 2: heybude (1780 in chips)
Isildur1: posts small blind 15
heybude: posts big blind 30
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to heybude [Td Qh]
Isildur1: raises 30 to 60
heybude: calls 30
*** FLOP *** [9s Jh 2s]
heybude: checks
Isildur1: bets 60
heybude: raises 120 to 180
Isildur1: calls 120
*** TURN *** [9s Jh 2s] [7s]
heybude: bets 210
Isildur1: calls 210
*** RIVER *** [9s Jh 2s 7s] [Ac]
heybude: bets 1330 and is all-in
Isildur1: calls 770 and is all-in
Uncalled bet (560) returned to heybude
*** SHOW DOWN ***
heybude: shows [Td Qh] (high card Ace)
Isildur1: shows [9h 7c] (two pair, Nines and Sevens)
Isildur1 collected 2440 from pot

Out of the 86 games we played in 3.5 hours I was up 45-41. Because of rake this is actually only a little over 2 buy ins. I’m not sure if this is above or below my expectation against him, but I do know I ran below expectation at the 50/100 blind level. He W$@SD 67% of the time at that blind level, while going to SD 86% of the time. Basically, he almost never folded at 50/100 blinds but managed to win 2/3rds of the time at showdown.

What makes me really excited about today is I made a ton of VPPs. I’ve already hit my VPP goal for this week and then some, and I think there are going to be days like this in the future. Blom likes playing a lot of tables at once, something that not a lot of HU SNG players like to do. But I’ll 6 table versus him for sure, and I hope that is going to make him prefer to play me. If that’s the case, I’m going to start skyrocketing up the VPP leaderboard.