Lately I've gotten more into donkaments, if only to help with my cashgame volume. It's hard to quit a cash session early if you have tournaments still running. I won 3.5 buyins over 2700 hands, and boy it was a grind.

Some hands. First the winning ones:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3301141 - kinda interesting versus a 18/15. I pretty much decided when he flatted the flop that he did not have a set, and on that logic I was not going to consider folding any turn or river unless a jack binked (maybe an ace). thankfully I was right, and he snap-left the table afterwards. dont bluff a station, kids.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3301138 - snapshoved the river, he ran his entire bank down and called. wheeeee.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3301133 - this is one of the more hilarious stackoffs of the year. monkeys clicking buttons

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3301128 - and when all else fails, get there

I only had one bad play for the session (and I only lost one pot larger than $200 the entire session), and they are one hand in the same.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3301157 - villain is a supernova elite argentian nit, and I think I should have just folded to his flopraise because I had the ace of diamonds. you can remove a whole bunch of hands in his range that I'm ahead of just from this fact. It's also easy to put him on any set or JT. oh well, lesson learned.

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In the donkaments portion of the evening, I lost AA to KK in the 109r with like 60 left. It sucked, yeah, but now I have a lot more confidence re: tournaments after talking strat with a friend for a long time. I think my shorthanded cashgame play has warped my preflop and postflop tendencies in tournaments. Namely, the fact that I know to treat AQ/88-JJ like the hands they are, since it's usually in a fullring dynamic against people who dont get aggressive unless they have a hand that crushessaid range. I typically overplay these kinds of hands because I assume donkament regulars have a more aggressive dynamic, when in reality the ranges that they 3bet with are polarized (yes, polarized, im not confusing it with "weighted") to nuts/air. As such, more optimal donkament play should involve knowing these things off the bat.

Frequencies are obviously gonna change when dealing with more psychotic players, but if I open in MP with AQs to 2.7bb with a 18bb stack and a regular donkamenter from America proceeds to make it 8bb from the SB, then I just need to learn to fold. That's pretty much my lesson learned with donkaments, so hopefully I can ride a positive wave of variance and win some of these things while grinding cash. That said, full ring is soooooo boring. Blurgh.