Rough day on Stars yesterday...

I played a 3,000 hand session on Stars yesterday and had a poor result. I lost $2.5k playing $2/4 NL 6 Max and just ran into a bunch of bad spots. I also misplayed a few hands, which I'll talk about below.



If this is too small to watch or see the bet sizing you can go here to download the short 5 min HH replayer vid:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=RFZN9NMY

The TT hand was against a huge fish and I should have just 4-bet huge and got it in pre-flop since his 3-bet stat was over 40%. I didn't really want to have a huge flip against him because I thought I had an edge postflop, so I ended up calling... I think check-raising the flop and betting out the turn is fine because I can see him calling me down with 9X pretty easily or calling the flop and turn with some type of draw (flushdraw, 98, etc.).

The next hand, I don't think my line was terrible, but after reviewing the hand with Noel, a poker friend from my poker group "Destined2pwn," we decided that on this board it is probably less likely for the villain to raise my donk as a bluff. This was because it looks like a board that hits my range pretty hard and I could be going for a bet/3-bet all in (which was what I was doing). A check/call on this flop is probably better in this situation and would definitely reduce variance. Of course, I'm still going to be bet/3-betting these types of hands but probably at a lot lower frequency than I have been doing it.

This hand I should have just got it all in on the flop, but I think I played the hand fine... I got the money in good and it was a bad beat. I don't know if we can rely on him betting the turn, so that's why getting it in on the flop is probably best.

The AJ hand was against a guy who is a 3-bet monkey... he 3-bets 20% of his hands pre-flop so I decided AJ was ahead of his range and wanted to take a flop. He c-bets most of the time after he 3-bets and I've seen him fold a decent amount to a raise in situations like this so I decided I had enough equity to shove on him here. I think my play is fine here, but very high variance. That's the problem with playing against very aggro regs like this... sooner or later you are going to have to take a stand like this so you are not getting run over. 4-betting was an option here pre-flop but I'd rather do it with slightly better hands that I'm more willing to stack off with or worse hands that I can fold easily if he 5-bet shoves (A2o, A5o, etc).

The 88 hand is very similar to the earlier KJ hand. I like a c/c on the flop here as well because it allows him to c-bet as a bluff and he double barrels a lot so I could even c/c turn and pick off some bluffs here as well if he shuts down on the river. I got it in with decent equity so it wasn't the worst thing in the world.

Villain played this hand well against me... I expected him to be floating on the flop a lot but once I do a silly mini check-raise on the turn (to induce him to be spewy or shove AJ, etc.) I have to call off because I'm pretty much committed at that point.

This AA hand was just weird, he's a fish and I have an overpair... he probably has JT here or other weak TX hands more often then a slowplayed top set.

This hand I like my play up to the river, where I should have raised a bit smaller but the fold to the river shove is fine. It's unlikely he has the balls to turn his hand into a bluff on that river.

Just a bad beat here with a set of 2's against the shortstacked fish.

Another weird hand against a shortstack where I'm just going for max value and am committed to the hand after betting the turn.


I'm gonna play some more tonight and see if I can run a bit better and book a nice win.