O-Poker

I played a 1/2 HU cash session vs. Brian Townsend on Friday (see Thursday's post for details).

I can now tell everyone that, lifetime, I run at 19ptbb/100 vs. aba20. :)

Link to Download video
http://files.filefront.com/12huvsBT.wmv/;8411706;/fileinfo.html
(I think that the picture will be a lot crisper if you click the download now instead of watching it on their site. It is a 40MB windows media player file.)

I couldn't get the sound to go any louder, so you may have to turn up the volume pretty loud to hear it.

After watching the video, I think that I played pretty weak-tight and my commentary was lacking. The commentary mainly consisted of me stating the obvious. I should have gone into my thought process more.

There were a lot of flops that I should have lead out or check/raised him on - with or without a hand. He obviously wasn't hitting every flop. I was trying to play small pot poker.

I think that several things effected the way that I was playing (and shouldn't have):

1. Not wanting to look like an idiot on the video. :)
2. Playing against one of the best.
3. A little strange video taping - I folded a few hands preflop that I shouldn't have because I was distracted.
4. I had just watched a heads up cash video by Taylor. He was dominating the other player and didn't make a whole lot of moves without hands because his opponent was bluffing him a ton. He could pick his spots against that player. Brian wasn't playing this way and I gave up way too many pots that I should have taken stabs at.

JJ Hand in video
I felt like I had to be ahead of his range. My initial gut reaction was to shove all-in. He could have been re-raising me with any Queen, a lot of pocket pairs (Q62 flop), or a flush draw. I went with my gut and shoved and got lucky.

QJ 4 bet preflop
I was aware that I had been playing pretty weak the entire match and I hadn't 4 bet preflop. I 4 bet thinking that I am taking that pot down right there most times. He pretty much has to either shove or fold to my 4 bet and my hand has to look huge to him. There isn't much he can play there.

Please give me feedback/tell me I'm weak-tight.

Pokertracker stats from session

I have been a member of Cardrunners for a while. I think I joined the site a about 1 1/2 years ago. There is no doubt in my mind that the site dramatically improved my game and continues to help me in improving my game.

I don't have any ads on this blog other than a referral text link to cardrunners. CR has a points based referral system. You can use the points for things like Itunes gift cards, membership extensions, Cardplayer subscription, Best Buy Gift Cards, Ipods, etc.

I have been saving the points for one thing - "Taped HU session with a pro and we will send you the video and/or post it for others to critique (if you want)."

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed that I finally had enough referral points for the HU taped session with a pro. I emailed them and included a list of the pros that I would like to play in order of preference. I put Brian Townsend at the top of the list. I didn't think there was any way that I would wind up playing the match against him. I assumed I would get one of the other pros - which would have been fine, also.

I got an email from Brian a couple of days later to schedule a time for the match. After a few back and forth emails and getting our schedules lined up, we are going to play 1/2nl hu tomorrow (Friday) at 4:30 EST on pokerstars. I didn't have any cash on stars, so I moved a few buy-ins over there from FTP.

I plan on recording the session. I'll post a link to the video after I upload it.

HU cash games are probably the weakest part of my game. I am looking forward to the match and Brian's video/comments on how poorly I am playing against him. I hope to learn a lot about my game from a great player's POV. I am crossing my fingers that the lesson isn't too expensive.


***EDIT: My stars sn is sportingimag

When you play against the same opponent a lot, small exploitable areas in their game surface. Sometimes, it takes patience and good timing to be able to take advantage of them. Brian Townsend (SBRugby) used that patience and proper timing to take advantage of Phil Ivey by making a "fake misclick" several months after he had actually misclicked against Ivey. He had been waiting for the proper timing and found it. Some of the speculation on different forums is that Ivey was quickly calling preflop pot size bets and he called preflop thinking that it was a pot size bet.

The Hand

Brian Townsend's Blog Entry about the hand