LOL Calling Ranges (and other crap)

I don't know, maybe I'm old school or just old. I remember shit like the gap concept and, for the most part, attempt to apply it to my play. Fortunately, from a theoretical perspective, many of my opponents pay no heed to such timeworn cliches. Unfortunately, from a practical perspective, it just seems to make no fucking difference.

Three hands in the three $11x180 turbo SNGs I ran on Stars last night have me scratching my head. Maybe it's what I should expect in these kinds of events, or perhaps these are reasonable calls and I am an idiot. Or maybe, as Dr. Pauly suggests, this is some kind of sign that the assembled donkeys, lemurs and fishies sense that the end of the online poker world is at hand and they are spewing their rolls in a frantic attempt to profit before the apocalypse strikes. I just don't know anymore, so you tell me.

Hand #1—I actually won this one going in ahead, but at least one of the calls has me perplexed. I've gotten short stacked thanks to a run of bad cards and whiffing those flops where I had a playable starting hand. I'm down to around $1,200 chips and the blinds are at something like $100/$50 and are going up very soon, so I'm looking for a hand to go with. An early player who has me covered by a bit limps and it folds around to me in LP, wherein I find AcQc and shove. The BB, who has be covered by 3x calls as does the EP limper. The BB shows KhQh and the limper flips over KJo. The board comes all baby cards and my A high takes it down.

In the interest of fair warning, the next two hands represent bad beats.

Hand #2—With about six table still playing and mine running seven or eight handed, I am short stacked (as is just about everyone in these things at this point) and shove from LP over a standard raise from an MP player who barely has me covered. I don't know about you, but if I am him I am looking for a decent hand if I'm going to call here. Of course, I'm also not making a standard raise from MP with Qd9d, so what do I know. One Q on the flop and another on the turn, and IGHN thanks to a "superstar call."

Hand #3—Twenty-two players left, 18 pay and I'm sitting in about 14th place. With my stack size and the blinds/antes, I'm in push or fold mode when I wake up with AQo in the BB. It folds around to the CO, who has me covered by just a bit and makes a standard raise. The button and the SB fold, and I shove. The CO thinks for not too long at all, really, before making the call with A6o. Yippee! The flop comes A high, the turn is a blank and, 93 percent favorite be damned, his three-outer hits on the river and IGHN in 22nd courtesy of another "superstar call," my friends.

So, what's up with that?

Cash Games

On another front, after steering clear of cash games for the past few months I have dipped my toe back into the $50 full-ring NLHE waters in the interest of shaking off some of the rust in advance of my upcoming Vegas trip. I do plan to play a couple of tournaments (Venetian and Caesar's 7:00 p.m. events, most likely), but expect that I will spend at least a few hours at $1/$2 NLHE (Venetian and MGM, most likely) while I am there. After booking a few small gains in sessions on FTP and Stars, I dropped over a buy in during a one-hour session last night.

Some of this was relearning that I have bad habits, like overplaying top pair. What really stood out, however, was the "tricky" play of a few of my opponents. And by tricky play I basically mean things like limping UTG with QQ and open limping in MP with AKs. In both cases I hit top pair on the flop, but lost a pretty penny to an overpair on the former and a better kicker on the latter. My bad on falling in love with top pair for sure, but those guys have to be long-term losers with those moves, right? Now I just have to be smart enough to exploit those plays rather than pay them off.

Lifetime Profit?

I don't have good enough records to be sure, but I think I may finally be in the black over my poker career. I started last year with $100 online and this year with $2,000+ even after $2,000 in withdrawals. Sure, there's some ad money in there too, but I'm pretty pleased with that turnaround. What's more, almost all of it has come from MTTs in the last four months.

It's particularly satisfying in that back in September I set a goal to build enough of a bankroll to be able to play in Vegas when I go in February. Not only have I amassed an offline roll bigger than I had originally hoped, I've been able to send some money back into the family account too. Hopefully that will result in a reduced static level around the old Jestocost household.