2-5 Starts off With a Heater (1/30/2011)
Sunday, January 30, 2011 at 11:47PM I started mixing in 2-5 games to my live schedule on Thursday. Thankfully things have started off extremely well. I went on a bit of a heater this week up around +$1500 in just 25 hours of play from Thursday-Saturday. Most of the winnings came on Saturday night (+$900 in my 12:00a.m- 6:00a.m session).
I can’t stress how important starting off good was, it takes pressure off big-time. It would have sucked if 2-5 started off really bad and I had to drop to primarily 1-2 another month or so.
As for the games, they can be just amazing. There is a lot of money to be made. There are still plenty of mistakes just like 1-2, only the games are just enormous. Little mistakes are really magnified on a 2-5 table. If someone makes a slight error against you in 1-2 you might only win $30. In 2-5 you can easily win $60-$120 from a small mistake and it’s not uncommon.
The biggest pot I saw during my session on Saturday was around $2,500. An aggressive regular who is a bit of a gambler, but better than most players 3-bet raised $120 some pre-flop. A whale who had been tangling with him all night CALLED. The pot is now $350.
FLOP: Tc, 7s, 5c,
Regular bets $200 on the flop with, whale thinks a moment and calls. Pot is now $750
TURN: 8h
Regular leads out again, this time around $350, whale calls.
RIVER: Ks
Regular leads out $500 this time. The whale CALLS.
BOARD: Tc, 7s, 5c, 8h, Ks
Regular shows T8o off-suit, two pair. Whale mucks in disgust.
Pot size: about $2,450.00
The guy who lost was on my immediate right and we got along. He later told me he had K9. Yes woof-woof king fucking nine. His explanation was he didn’t think the regular had shit, then he had a draw, then he thought he was catching a bluff on the river. The only thing he was right about was the regular did have a very weak 3-bet range in that scenario. But I know that guy and there is no way he is firing that much money on the turn and river without at least two pair.
A guy who walked by later struck up a conversation with me about the game, since he saw me in a few big pots and was curios about my hands. He had been playing at a table close by and watching the action. He claimed that the whale had A9 on the $2,500 pot because he held his cards up slightly before he mucked, meaning he called the $500 river bet with ace high. The whale hadn’t lied to me all night, I believed him when he said he had K9. However, the guy who had been watching insisted to me that he 100% saw the A9. Either way it was a horrendous play on the flop, turn, and river. I’d like to believe he at least had K9 with a pair, that would make a little more sense, with the logic that the regulars starting hand was shit and he’s going to catch some bluffs there.
This may all sound a little mind-blowing and it really was. However, there was a dynamic between the two players, which I won’t really go into now.
This Week
Just getting over the flu completely and want to at least work out twice. Haven’t done so since I got sick. I feel great with poker because of the winnings over the weekend. I’ll resume the live grind on Thursday. It’s sort of sucked with the girl I’ve been dating. I’m not sure things are going to work out, but I’ll get over it.
Online Poker
Officially a side-project, even know I’m not going to give up on finding a nitch somewhere and establishing a win-rate. The bills are getting paid with live poker even know I don’t have many expenses.
The last week I’ve been studying and cross reference my database to plug leaks online. I lost -1.05 BB/100 during the last 150k hands, so I still have a lot of work to do. I’m making a lot of adjustments and I’m going to implement them during my next 100,000 hands logged. After that I’ll analyze those hands and make more adjustments. Hopefully one day I’ll get it right.
Also we have PokerStars again fucking with the buy-in structure. The 20-50BB tables are being eliminated and that’s where I’ve primarily been playing buying in for 50BB stacks. I adjusted my game to play those tables because that’s where the action was. Most of the hands in my analysis are from 20-50BB tables which will soon be extinct, so it’s really a bad time for the changes, in the middle of my database analysis but that’s life. Whatever happens I’ll find what tables the action migrates to and make that my new home. The 20-50BB tables are being replaced with cap tables which is beyond stupid. Stars has again caved to “pros” (or exclusively 40-100BB pros) whining for format changes, who obviously only want to funnel fish into an exclusively 40-100BB NL format environment. They want fish in this environment because it’s their personal comfort zone. Even know everyone hates these tables because it’s the same 6-8 20 tabling robot nits on every table. I don’t know what is worse, cap or 40-100, guess time will tell. But yeah now a casual player is restricted from buying in for 20.1-39.9 BBs on a stake of their choice.
I spent the last few months where 70% of my tables online where 20-50BBs because that’s where the highest percentage of recreational players went. I adapted and changed my game to follow the action. Now the 20-50BB is arbitrarily removed without warning. So yeah I have to say I do feel screwed over. If you want to play online poker you have to adjust and dealt with NL format popularity accordingly. Unless you play 40-100BB, then just bitch because your win-rate obviously sucks due to environment changes. Not even recreational players are stupid enough to sit on your tables. But Stars will work with you to keep trying to force them into that format, don’t worry!
Anyways this week I’m going to make the final recommended adjustments and log some hours. But I’m going to try to not beat myself up if it doesn’t go well. I’ll try to focus on logical things.
Long post, that’s it for now.
-bag
Reader Comments (4)
Really impressive that, especially given that you have the flu. I can't play when i'm ill -no chance of concentrating
Thanks man. Well I was pretty close to full strength during the live sessions above. Probably around 90% on Saturday so close enough.
I agree with you that the removal of the 20bb-50bb games on Stars is bunk.
WTF?
Yeah 20-50BB tables are still the most popular table format on that site by a 50% margin, even with the announcement that they will be discontinued on the 10th.
Great strategy remove the most popular tables on the site!
If it makes the games as bad as I think it will I may need to consider looking at Full Tilt. Supernova is worthless with no games. This might really screw up the cash games on stars for a long time. I don't see the fish instantly going to the 40-100 tables or cap tables. No one likes the 40-100 tables, no one likes the cap tables.
I think it could actually cause casual players to just not play cash at all on the Stars. This time they may switch to playing SNGs, MTTs, or play cash on a site with a more preferable buy-in structure. Time will tell I guess. My gut says Stars has really fucked this up.