JeffreyLipsey.com

I didn’t play Cash Games for too long today, given I had already put in like 3 hours at the tournament table but I think in total I put in 2.5-3 hours but I don’t remember. Like yesterday the session was made or lost in just a few hands.


The first big hand of the day occurred in the 2nd session (I played 2 small sessions instead of 1 big one); I’m dealt TT and I’ve done nothing but fold, fold and fold some more. I isolate up several limpers and get 3 callers at $11 apiece; the pot is $40 after rake and I get a pretty good flop for my hand: 653 with two clubs. Its checked to me and I bet $30 and get two calls, the pot is $100. The turn brings an offsuit jack and I still have a good feeling that I’m ahead, although if I get raised its a pretty easy fold. I bet $60; enough of a bet that it protects against draws and I leave myself room to fold to an all in. Luckily that doesn’t happen and I do take the enlarged pot down on the turn.


Not 10 hands later I again get TT and I isolate a limper to $11, and again I get 3 callers. The flop comes a very safe 965r and the SB donks $15 into the $40. I put his range a lot for value/information rather than a complete bluff although I guess he shows up with a semibluff here too some of the time. I don’t think about it too much and raise it to $45 to get it HU between the two of us. He thinks for a bit and calls and the pot is now $130 (I play big pots!). The turn brings a dry 4 and I still have a feeling I’m ahead, although again if he raises me I’m dead. He checks to me and I bet a strong $90 into the $130 leaving me with probably $120 behind; I thought maybe I could have bet $70 and it would be more +EV but I don’t want to induce a bluff shove so I’m fine with my bet sizing. He thinks then calls for a second and the river brings a K with the pot being $310; I wasn’t planning on shoving anyway but now it gives me reason to check it behind and my opponent shows 65s for two pair and the winning hand. I shrugged it off as I feel like the number of two-pair type hands there is extremely limited and if he had a set/straight he would have raised on the turn.


Also not 10 hands later I get KK in the big blind. An aggressive player who likes to pay off raises in MP to $11 and another aggressive opponent reraises it up to $33 preflop; I’m pretty much doing back flips in my head lol. The guy who reraised had also reraised earlier as a bluff with KJo vs the same open raiser and then fired 2 horrible barrels only to suck out on the river so never do I expect to be behind.


I did have a decision to make though, did I want to cold 4 bet or just call and then check/bomb any flop; I chose the latter and induce the other guy to call and if the ace comes on the flop then gg. Luckily for me, the other guy did call and the pot going to the the flop was $100 pre-rake and the board came 994r. I checked to the reraiser who cbet $60 and I went all in for my remaining $170 and flipped up my cards. The board bricked out only to have my opponent show AA For-the-Win and I get stacked. Not much I can about that either unfortunately.


In all I finished down $300 at the 1/2 cash game. It’s not a whole lot but the prospects of me playing 2/5 have severely gone down hill given my downswing. Back to the grind tomorrow.

Tourney: I played the $330 deep stack at the Venetian and I lasted about 3 hours. There were only 3 important hands that I played the entire tournament and the summary could be summed up with those.


Hand 1: We are in the first level of the tournament probably not 30 minutes in, I had some pretty good reads on my opponents even though I haven’t played with them before. I get AQo in EP and raise it to t300 (blinds 50/100 effective stack 12k) and the button calls; he’s very taggish but in a bad way–very predictable and easy to put on hands. I put his cold calling range on pocket pairs and broadway cards, which is fairly narrow given how bad some of these players can be.


The flop comes J92 rainbow and since I’m OOP here my standard play is to C-bet and get my opponent to fold 33-88 as there aren’t many strong hands in range given this flop, although there are a fair amount of draws that I get value from. I bet t400 in the t600 pot and he flats; the turn is a blank 4 and I check to him and he checks behind with the pot being 1400. I fully expected him to bet though if he did have a hand like 33-88 on that turn just because a lot of bad online regulars/tournament players turn those hands into bluffs and I would have folded. Once he checked back though his range was much weaker than had he bet so that’s a plus for me. The river paired the 9 on the board and was a very good card for me. Not only did it reduce the likelihood that he has the 9 but its a relatively safe card not likely to help me either and makes it a good card to expect a bluff on. I check to my opponent and he fires t900 into the t1400 pot and I started to think of all the hands that he would do that with and it didn’t add up.


Before I played a lot of HU I wouldn’t even have thought about calling, or maybe I would have attempted to turn my own hand into a bluff and fired again. Assuming my preflop reads are good he’s not likely to bet 33-88 here as that would make no sense (and if someone did bet it here it is extremely note worthy) so his river bets are going to be JJ+ (unlikely), Jx and I guess 98s for value and a ton of missed straight draws like KQ, QT, T8s. The problem is a Tag isn’t likely to have too many Jx hands in this spot, maybe QJ, KJ and AJ only (30 combos) and then 98s (2 combos) to complete the value range. The bluffs will make up 22 combinations and my opponent needs to be bluffing only 900/2300 for my call to be profitable. Since he’s bluffing 22/54 our call is mainly on the break even variety but I felt like he was bluffing a lot more than for value so I did make the call, and he showed QT for the missed draw. This call alone pretty much made my day even if the results didn’t turn in my favor. My chip stack: ~t13,500.


Hand 2: The only woman at the table was sitting to my right and thankfully she was friendly because otherwise it would be a complete Bore to play as I was doing a lot of folding. She seemed to know what she was doing to some degree, but you could tell from the way she complains about the beats that she’s not the most experienced of players. She’s down to roughly t5500 chips with blinds of 75/150 and limps in EP; I make a fairly loose isolation play with QsJs up to t600 and I get 1 caller plus the lady to my right. The flop is KdTs7s giving me a sick draw; the lady to my right leads into me 1000 chips and I don’t think too much about it and raise it up to 3000 chips. These players like to lead fairly weak into the Pre-flop raiser mainly for ‘information’ so i wouldn’t be surprised if she did bet there with Tx and I don’t expect her to ever fold a king anyway. My raise size made it so that if she did have top pair her most +EV move would be to just go all in right there and give me my most equity; if she called though and she checked to me on the turn I could very easily check behind when I missed as she’s committed anyway. Unfortunately she did just call though to my displeasure but no worries, I turned my flush. She decided to put the rest of her chips in after I hit it and she was fairly upset that I raised here ‘with just a flush draw’ but oh well. Chip stack: t19,500.


The final hand for me had the effective chip stack at t18,000 with blinds of 100/200/25. I’m on the button with KK and it folds around; I make it t600 to go and both the SB and BB defend their blind, the pot is t1800. The flop comes T54 two-toned and my Taggish opponent in the big blind leads t1000 into me and I don’t really hesitate to raise it to t3000 and he quickly makes it t7500. At this point I had some pause but with the flush draw out there this is how many people would play naked flush draws like 4 years ago when they thought they had fold equity. Fortunately I know better than to fold an over pair to my opponents while playing tournaments lmao and I just ship in my last 15,000 chips. He didn’t snap call but he did make a ’sigh’ before calling and flipping over K5s for the bare flush draw. His equity was pretty poor and I really don’t like the bet/3bet line as a semi-bluff in this situation; I would have either bet/called the flop or check/called and possibly check/shoved had the stacks been small enough. The turn brings the flush and its gg; I bust probably around the 675th mark out of a mammoth starting crowd of 850 and head to find something to do.

Hand 1: It was seriously my 3rd hand at the table so I have no reads on anyone. I’m dealt JJ in MP on a 10 handed table and UTG+1 makes it $15 to-go at 1/2 blinds (a very big open raise). Right now I have no idea what kind of player he is but i did notice that A) he didn’t have a full stack so he probably wasn’t that great and B) I had previously seen him open limp/fold A5o from UTG+2 the hand before so I know for a fact he plays too many hands and has no value for position.


Even still I decide to call it and not re-raise it as I give myself an opportunity for post-flop play. I get a real good flop: T82r I believe and he bets out fairly strong–probably $25 into the $30 pot. I call, the pot become $80 and the turn brings in a backdoor diamond draw. My opponent rather quickly over-shoves the pot for his remaining $110 and I couldn’t think of a reason to fold, especially with no read so I call. He flips over AA and I get it in pretty bad. I later find out he’s very passive and had I had this read I would have folded the turn so with that I consider it a cooler. Not bad, 3 hands played already down $150.


Hand 2: I fold for pretty much 30 minutes trying to build reads. There is an aggressive guy wearing an FTP hat to my left, halvsame across from me and 2 stations to my right; in all I think I have a fairly decent seat. I didn’t know how aggressive this guy was to my left but I opened once in my MP to $7 and he 3bet me when I held JTs. I wanted to call but being OOP here pretty much forced me to fold; if I’m in position I have no problem peeling one and playing 3-bet pots (something that playing a lot of HU gives me confidence to do). The next rotation around I’m dealt Q6s on the button and I think we are 5 handed so i open it to 7. I already have it in my head that I will 4bet bluff the aggressive player if he does decide to 3bet as he’s been getting out of line. I make it 7, he re-raises me to 25 now that he’s OOP and I think for a moment and make it $60 total. Its a rather large size but I couldn’t think of making it too much smaller but right now I would have preferred to make it $55. Either way it didn’t matter as he shipped me in 100 bb deep and I folded; he showed ATo and I still am confused at his play. I can’t decide if he was doing it as a bluff or for value, both in the 3bet and the 5bet. Obviously ATo is a pretty big underdog to my 5bet calling range let alone my 4betting range including bluffs and I know my ratios; given he showed the ATo I think he was just a maniac and I’m leveling myself. However, with perfect information I like my 4bet bluff in that spot even if it was a bit on the large size; but I should probably get out of this mindset if I’m playing 1/2 live.


Hand 3: Unfortunately I wasn’t able to take advantage of any meta-game with the maniac on my left as it seems like I folded every hand for the next 90 minutes. I did win a coin flip for 30 BB while 6 handed with 88 vs AQs and that helped somewhat (that was actually before Hand 2 above). An old guy from Texas sits down wearing a cowboy hat and a bunch of bling; he was pretty bad and he seemed like he just wanted to gamble. The first hand he plays he shoves all-in 100 BB deep with 44 vs an UTG reraise and a bunch of cold callers and gets called by the manic’s ATo and holds. That set the tone for one of several of his 100, 200 and even 300 BB Allin pre-flops in minuscule pots. He was also straddling and would limp in every time he had the opportunity. This set the tone for me as I folded myself down to 65 BB or so (I was all out of cash I only brought $400 with me) and I opened 77 from MP. The hand before, the cowboy shoved Allin and showed Kx, although he said he had KT and they were well over 200 bb deep. So I open my 77 and get 3 callers and cowboy says ‘why not I’ll do it again’ and I pretty much insta-call for my remaining 60 bb. Unfortunately for me he had QQ and I don’t hit and I’m forced to take a loan from Halvsame because the table is just that good.


Hand 4: This hand happened before hand 3: I get AQo and open it like normal and get 4 callers, including halvsame. The flop comes Q92 all diamonds and I don’t have a diamond; Halvsame leads $25 into the $35 pot and I figure him for either A) a strong draw or B) a made hand as it doesn’t make much sense for him to just plain bluff into the 4 of us, especially when the other 3 were pretty horrible. To be honest, I really wanted to fold TPTK vs him there but I felt like that would have been too exploitable as I can see myself leading Qx with the x of diamonds a ton in that spot (probably the easiest way to play it). So I call and the others fold and its HU between me and Halvsame with a pot of around $80. The turn brings the Ad so its 4-flush to the board and he bets $60 into the main pot. At this point I couldn’t think of a single hand I beat even though I have 2 pair so I just fold my hand, feeling very dirty about it. Thinking about it though even if he was semibluffing the flop the only hand that DIDN’T get there was JT with no diamond, and it doesn’t make much sense for him to play it that way. He later said he flopped the gutshot+FD+overcard and led it; not a bad play and I don’t fault either of our plays there.


That was pretty much my day though in terms of 5.5 hours. I did finish down about $440 but I feel like I didn’t have too much of an excuse to not play the way I did even if I could have done a better job of isolating + continuation betting.

Well, I’m here… finally! As I waited in the hotel lobby for a room I spent a lot of time trying to phone a bunch of people I knew were out here. I’m surprised I was actually able to get a hold of HalvSame because he’s got European phone number and I couldn’t call him last year.


He calls me back though and I was able to get a room 2 doors down from him so that was a nice break. We head over for dinner at the Venetian; I ordered some kind of caramelized breaded chicken and it was pretty good. Afterwords we headed over the cash game tables to play poker as I wanted to get myself on West Coast time ASAP.


We started at 7 pm PT and went until just before 1 am PT so I’m counting it as a rough 5.5 hours played (pretty good considering my normal hours…). There were only a few hands worth noting that I played and I’ll go over them in my next post; I finished down about $440 at the 1/2 NL game and it wasn’t a good start to the trip.


Afterwards, Halvsame and I come back to the hotel and I’m headed to bed; it doesn’t look like I’ll have any problems adjusting to the timezone. I just need to remember I’m 3 hours behind Marlyn…

Well, I arrived in Chicago Saturday afternoon with Marlyn and got picked up from the airport from my friend Anna and her boyfriend. The plan was to go to Frontera Grill in downtown Chicago as Marlyn and I had been wanting to go to any of Rick Bayless‘ restaurants for quite some time. They’ve started to replay Mexico: One Plate at a Time again on PBS and since I’ve gotten his cookbook I’ve become a sort of Mexican Food Connoisseur.


The food prices weren’t that bad, at least considering what Marlyn and I are used to paying in the DC Metro Area. Probably the thing that stood out the most to me was their home-made tortillas; I could tell the difference instantly and it makes me want to get some fresh Masa and make some myself!


Marlyn and I didn’t get into Aurora until 10 pm at night and on Sunday she got to meet the extended part of my family. I was a little nervous as there is a big disconnect between the personalities but I am happy everything went off without a hitch.


On Monday, we went up to the Geneva Commons Shopping Mall and Marlyn was able to get as much shopping as possible out of her veins with me there. She likes to complain about how I never go with her to pick out cloths so I was able to earn some brownie points there; hopefully I wont have to go back to Anthropology for quite some time!


I’m writing this now as she just left for the airport and I’m going to Ach-n-Lou’s Pizza with Mickey and Kiyoshi tonight; I don’t know how that pizza place is going to be I remember going there many, many years ago and I thought it was OK.


I leave for my dad’s on Thursday and then fly out to Vegas on Sunday which I should have more updates then.

Heads-Up went extremely well for me for the month of May, even if I didn’t put in much volume. After I get back I’m going to have to take a closer look at my priorities in terms of my time and responsibilities, especially if my success at heads up continues.