I finally got to go play some live poker this weekend, which I've been wanting to do for a while. I had lost about 12k straight playing various games online. 30/60 O8 and 20/40 8-game were the main culprits. One good thing about being able to play a number of different games is that when I'm struggling in one area, I can turn to a new one to get the feeling of a fresh start and to break up whatever monotony may've set in. Playing a different game or format (live vs. online, HU or full ring vs. 6-max, one game vs. mixed games, many tables vs. few tables) has become my go-to way of dealing with poker problems, and it seems to work well. I went to Potawatomi in Milwaukee and ended up playing 3-handed PLO all night. More on that in a bit.

My mini-downswing is no big deal to me; the online games above are great, and although I will play basically anyone who sits, I have had the good fortune to sit at tables that were about as juicy as they ever get lately. I managed to string together a few 2k-4k losses, and for me that means moving down from where 20/40 and 30/60 are my regular games to where I will take shots (up from 10/20 and 15/30) when known fish are playing. Not fun when I feel I'm one of the top 3 players at either limit but oh well.

I also have been playing a guy HU in a mixed game and he has gotten the better of me so far. I'm not going to go into specifics right now because I want to continue to get action on the off chance that he reads blogs and whatnot but I have been coolered extremely hard in the two matches I have lost (I think we're 2-2, but my 2 losses were significant and my wins were not). He's better than me at some games and worse at others. However, I will eventually post some NL hands of interest here, and they will make you laugh.

At "Poto," as it's known around here, I saw that the PLO game (5-5 blinds, 500-2500 buy-in) was dying for the evening, which is unusual for a Saturday night, but good for me since I prefer to play shorthanded. There were 2 regulars, who are both winners in this game but who are probably mediocre to poor by online mid-stakes standards, and one guy I'd never seen before who turned out to be a local businessman/gambler. Both regs had between 2500 and 5000 and the other guy had 1500 or so. I bought in for 500 and most everything went well for me right off the bat. I did lose a medium-sized pot with AA overpair on a dry board against a guy who flopped 3s up, but immediately after that hand, I doubled up by freerolling one of the regs.

4-handed, I limped QJT9ss UTG because the fish behind me was raising every pot, but sometimes folding if I raised. He potted it behind me to 25, and everyone called. I considered reraising small since my hand was miles better than the average hands the table was playing in this spot and because it plays great after the flop, but I was shallow-stacked (I began the hand with about 275 because I hadn't had time to reload from the previous hand) and didn’t want to end up isolated out of position by the fish on the off chance he reraised.

The flop was JT4 with a flush draw. The BB led into me for pot (100). Obviously, my chips are going in, but the fish behind me looked interested, so I thought it was likely he held a flush draw or possibly a duplicating/dominating straight draw. I decided that my raise would definitely not get any of those hands out, but the possibility of being reraised by the BB, who covered his 1500, might. I min-raised, because in my mind, that would highlight in his mind that I was re-opening the betting. He looked aggravated, tanked a while, and then said, "I'm not worried about you, but he (the BB) will charge me if I call!" He folded, and the BB put my last 50 in with bare JT. I hit a straight and dodged the backdoor flush draw he picked up. The folder claimed he folded KQ with a Q-hi flush draw, which if true, is awesome.

It definitely is possible; one thing that I really have learned about live games vs. online is that live players tend to value “made hands” way over draws, even in a game like PLO where those distinctions are much murkier. They tend to take a "Wait until I hit" approach with draws, yet rarely wait for bricks to fall with their marginal made hands like 2 pair (and never with anything stronger). This is important to realize, because when you are considering calling a jam from them, you need to discount big draws and weigh made hands more heavily in their ranges.

I played about 10 hours until about 6am, and it stayed 3- or 4-handed the entire time, though the lineup changed a couple of times. I won about $3k, which would’ve been six if I’d been able to fade the following beat. I include it because it has live components and because this is my blog, so if I choose to torture you with bad beat stories, so be it. Actually, I'll save it for the next post. Read on if you are a masochist like me.