FossilMan requests your feedback
 

As some of you may know, I managed to win the $320 PLO with rebuys in the WCOOP the other day. I've just put the report on my website, as well as the entire hand history file that I requested from PokerStars. Please click the link below, which will get you to the news section of my website, then click on "WCOOP, Part 2" to open a new window with the trip report. Within the trip report, in paragraph 4, you will see the words "separate document" in gold. This is a hot link that will open up another new window with the hand history file of all 843 hands I played in this tournament. This was a 3MB email when I got it from PokerStars, so it might take a few extra seconds to load.

www.fossilmanpoker.com/news.php

If you have no interest, no problem, of course. Move on to the next thread here on 2+2. If you are interested, I would enjoy receiving your feedback here in this thread. You will see several hands listed in my report where I point out that I made a mistake, but I'm sure there were others. And maybe my mistakes weren't as bad as I thought. Anyway, I thought it might be fun, and certainly educational, for me to hear your thoughts.

I am cross-posting this in 3 forums, NVG, MTT, and Omaha high. If the mods don't like this, feel free to consolidate into one thread in one forum. To be honest, I wasn't sure which forum would be best for this, so I'm letting them decide.

Thanks, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

Re: FossilMan requests your feedback
 

my feedback: you da man

Re: FossilMan requests your feedback
 

Greg, I'll start with this hand:

PokerStars Game #12124988783: Tournament #70000006, $300+$20 Omaha Pot Limit
- Level XXVIII (30000/60000) - 2007/09/18 - 06:53:51 (ET)
Table '70000006 98' 9-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: FossilMan (3749034 in chips)
Seat 9: O.Mustang (4472966 in chips)
FossilMan: posts small blind 30000
O.Mustang: posts big blind 60000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to FossilMan [8h 2s 7s 5h]
FossilMan: raises 60000 to 120000
O.Mustang: raises 240000 to 360000
FossilMan: calls 240000
*** FLOP *** [Jd Kd 9s]
O.Mustang: checks
FossilMan: checks
*** TURN *** [Jd Kd 9s] [3c]
O.Mustang: checks
FossilMan: checks
*** RIVER *** [Jd Kd 9s 3c] [Tc]
O.Mustang: bets 360000
FossilMan: calls 360000
*** SHOW DOWN ***
O.Mustang: shows [3h 6c Ac Ah] (a pair of Aces)
FossilMan: shows [8h 2s 7s 5h] (a straight, Seven to Jack)
FossilMan collected 1440000 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 1440000 | Rake 0
Board [Jd Kd 9s 3c Tc]
Seat 1: FossilMan (button) (small blind) showed [8h 2s 7s 5h] and won (1440000) with a straight, Seven to Jack
Seat 9: O.Mustang (big blind) showed [3h 6c Ac Ah] and lost with a pair of Aces


O.Mustang said, "do they tell u what I have"
FossilMan said, "obv not"
O.Mustang said, "how can u call"
O.Mustang said, "calling with all the way wih rubish"

[ QUOTE ]
Fossilman: At this point I came to realize that he was not just a whiner, but that he seriously just didn’t understand the changing value of hands as you progressed from a full table down to heads-up play. I am pretty certain that any experienced heads-up PLO player would tell me that my call on that river was standard, with the only question being could I raise for value? I’m sure in most cases the answer is no, as there really aren’t any worse hands that I could expect to get a call from there, but folding that river would have been a horrible play by me.

[/ QUOTE ]

Your heads up opponent was clearly an idiot (don't get me started on his chop negotiation). I especially like how he said "calling all the way" after he had checked the flop and turn.

Pre-flop is pretty standard since you're on the button and it's heads up. Especially if you think he's prone to overplay big pairs. OOP and/or multiway would be very different, obviously.

As for the river call (which was 3:1, btw - not the 2:1 you said in your blog), I wouldn't say it's standard since any Q + A,K,J,T,9, or 8 has you beat. And with the exception of QT (which he surely would have bet before now) you really can't eliminate these possibilities. Against this guy however, I think you could be justified, but it's close. My main defense of the call would come from the fact that his pre-flop re-raise indicates a co-ordinated hand, and almost any co-ordinated hand that hit a better straight on the river probably would have hit the flop well enough to justify a bet, at least on the turn.

Raising is undoubtedly spew unless you think he folds anything but the nuts. And again, I wouldn't count on it with this guy.

Re: FossilMan requests your feedback
 

I like Greg's play all the way here, although I don't think the PF raise is obligatory. Do you guys think villain should've re-raised PF, then bet the flop? I think it's only good if you also re-raise a fair smattering of wraps, so I guess I won't fault him much for not re-raising. But HU I'm even a little surprized he didn't bet into it as played. I think I would have more often than not--not doing so seems to me playing a bit scared.

To Greg: Thanks very much for making this available! I'll be very interested in checking out as much as I can get through.

Re: FossilMan requests your feedback
 

[ QUOTE ]
Do you guys think villain should've re-raised PF, then bet the flop?

[/ QUOTE ]

What I'm thinking is, given how villain actually played the hand, he can't complain that Greg looked him up with the dummy straight. However, I hesitate to say that calling a 1/2 pot bet on the river is standard, or that folding here is horrible in general.

Re: FossilMan requests your feedback
 

Why not just post a hand or two you have questions about?

Re: FossilMan requests your feedback
 

Thanks a lot for posting this. Should be interesting to be able to look at the whole tournament from your perspective.

Re: FossilMan requests your feedback
 

Wow, there are some serious amount of hands in there. :-O

I was thinking that I should go through them all, and take notes, but I realized that would take a billion years, so I quit doing that after 40 hands, and looked at your comments instead.

I have a couple of question from your early hands though, feel free to explain your play.
Hand 8: Limp/calling 6BB in MP with AhJh8h4s
Hand 11: Limp/raising/folding KsKhTh2s UTG
Hand 36: Please explain your play on every street

This is were I stopped looking at every hand.

I agree that hand 109 is not played optimal. i would probably just muck PF. Flop is icky, since we don't know if were drawing to the second(third) nuts.

Maybe I'll look at some more hands later. Thanks for sharing this Greg!

Re: FossilMan requests your feedback
 

you should get someone to fix up your avatar, it is squished.

Re: FossilMan requests your feedback
 

[ QUOTE ]
Why not just post a hand or two you have questions about?

[/ QUOTE ]

Re: FossilMan requests your feedback
 

[ QUOTE ]
I have a couple of question from your early hands though, feel free to explain your play.
Hand 8: Limp/calling 6BB in MP with AhJh8h4s
Hand 11: Limp/raising/folding KsKhTh2s UTG
Hand 36: Please explain your play on every street

[/ QUOTE ]

#8 - I have a weak hand, but the draws are to the nuts, and even after the raise it is only costing me 2% of my stack to see the flop. Simply put, at this early stage of a relatively cheap buyin PLO event, there are likely several players at my table who will pay off the nut flush, and even in a big way. The fact that we're still in the rebuy period doesn't hurt, either.

#11 - I thought it was quite possible that he didn't have the aces, and if not, I wanted to get it heads-up with him and me in position. Once he reraised, it was clear he did have them, and I was not getting the right price to call and try to outflop him. In hindsight it was clearly better to just call. I'm still not sure if it was a bad decision at the time or not to limp-reraise. Probably was, and if we hear from enough other PLO players who say it was wrong, I'm not going to put up a fight to the contrary.

#36 - I limped in because I had raggedy aces, and was out of position. In this spot, especially where the blinds are still small, I'd rather limp in with bad aces and try to flop top set and get paid off by the lower set or two pair who is certain I can't have aces because I didn't raise. I called on the flop because I had the nut straight draw, and the aces (which might be in the lead, though not likely), giving me 10 outs to the nuts on the turn. The turn card was obviously a bad one, but what you can't see in the HH is the timing tell he gave off that indicated indecision in his turn bet. I know timing tells are very unreliable, but it was there, and colored my decision. On the river, it seemed likely he had nothing or had me tied with the second nuts, and very unlikely he had the nuts. I thought he might also be silly enough to call my raise if he had flopped a set and didn't believe me, so I made a thin value raise.

Thanks, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

Re: FossilMan requests your feedback
 

Greg first of all congratulations on the win.

I don't play any tournies buti noticed you aren't tight but quite passive preflop. Is that a tourney strategy or do you play that way in cash game as well? I ask this because in a cash game Maciek Gracz said to me that in PLO raising preflop is the quick way to lose easy money.

Re: FossilMan requests your feedback
 

[ QUOTE ]
Greg first of all congratulations on the win.

I don't play any tournies buti noticed you aren't tight but quite passive preflop. Is that a tourney strategy or do you play that way in cash game as well? I ask this because in a cash game Maciek Gracz said to me that in PLO raising preflop is the quick way to lose easy money.

[/ QUOTE ]
This post belongs in the NVG version of this thread.

Re: FossilMan requests your feedback
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Greg first of all congratulations on the win.

I don't play any tournies buti noticed you aren't tight but quite passive preflop. Is that a tourney strategy or do you play that way in cash game as well? I ask this because in a cash game Maciek Gracz said to me that in PLO raising preflop is the quick way to lose easy money.

[/ QUOTE ]
This post belongs in the NVG version of this thread.

[/ QUOTE ]

hehe [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

Re: FossilMan requests your feedback
 

[ QUOTE ]
Greg first of all congratulations on the win.

I don't play any tournies buti noticed you aren't tight but quite passive preflop. Is that a tourney strategy or do you play that way in cash game as well? I ask this because in a cash game Maciek Gracz said to me that in PLO raising preflop is the quick way to lose easy money.

[/ QUOTE ]

I haven't been able to import the file into my PTO database, so I have no statistics, but when I was watching the final table, it looked like he was raising pre-flop more than just about anyone else, except perhaps O.Mustang.

Re: FossilMan requests your feedback
 

Hey Greg, I'm just in-between classes so I'm not going to read your summary and go into specific hands ATM, but I just wanted to say 2 things.

I railed you for the last couple of hours of that tournament, and I've gotta say, you are a hell of a tournament player. I see you play the Hi/Lo game a lot on Stars so clearly, your pre-flop hand selection full-ring game is good. Also, I thought that you made great late-position raises and flop steals throughout the tournament, and adjusting much better than the other players at the final table when people started to get knocked out and the game got shorthanded.

Also, it was nice to see that you are a friendly, talkative player at the tables. It's a pleasure to play at the same site as you.

Congrats on another tournament win! Now that you have your PLO credentials, you should come play the 25/50 game every now and then... I'd love to see you there. Anyways, good luck in the future, and given some free time, I'll do a few hand reviews later.

Re: FossilMan requests your feedback
 

[ QUOTE ]
Greg first of all congratulations on the win.

I don't play any tournies buti noticed you aren't tight but quite passive preflop. Is that a tourney strategy or do you play that way in cash game as well? I ask this because in a cash game Maciek Gracz said to me that in PLO raising preflop is the quick way to lose easy money.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks.

You're probably thinking of the early part of this tournament, not the end game, as I was very aggro for the last few hours. But, my normal style in a cash game is very little raising preflop. I don't think it helps much to define the opponents hand by raising in PLO, but unless you raise with a wide variety, it does help to define your own hand. So, I generally only raise with good AA hands, and the occasional small/medium wrap hand (to balance and disguise the AA hands).

Early in any tourney, I play pretty much like I would in a cash game, and don't worry about going broke. I only do my best to accummulate chips, whatever the risk.

Thanks, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

Re: FossilMan requests your feedback
 

Do you really mean that you only raise the blinds with ultra-premium hands? Or do you mean "reraise" when you say raise?

Re: FossilMan requests your feedback
 

Hi Greg,

Now when you are reading this thread, could you please list your top5 forms (which games you find most fun) of poker? You were talking about this topic in some WCOOP final table coverage, but clear list would be nice. Thanks.

Re: FossilMan requests your feedback
 

[ QUOTE ]
Do you really mean that you only raise the blinds with ultra-premium hands? Or do you mean "reraise" when you say raise?

[/ QUOTE ]

I truly mean I only raise with my ultra-premium hands, and with enough "other" hands so you can't pin me down. If it folds to me in very late position, I will raise with any hand I want to play, but in early position, or after other limpers, I don't raise much.

Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

Re: FossilMan requests your feedback
 

[ QUOTE ]
... at this early stage of a relatively cheap buyin PLO event...

[/ QUOTE ]
One day Greg, I'll have enough so that for me this statement will be accurate [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] One day...

Re: FossilMan requests your feedback
 

Why won't these hands import to PTO? It says error getting game level for each hand. I'd really like to review the whole thing but it'd take forever to read through the text.

Re: FossilMan requests your feedback
 

[ QUOTE ]
Why won't these hands import to PTO? It says error getting game level for each hand. I'd really like to review the whole thing but it'd take forever to read through the text.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think this is the problem:

A real HH from Pokerstars starts like this (one line):

PokerStars Game #12111893123: Tournament #70000006, $300+$20 Omaha Pot Limit - Level I (10/20) - 2007/09/17 - 15:00:00 (ET)


Greg's HHs all start like this (two lines):

PokerStars Game #12111893123: Tournament #70000006, $300+$20 Omaha Pot Limit
- Level I (10/20) - 2007/09/17 - 15:00:00 (ET)

PTO hiccups because it can't figure out what the blind level is for each hand.

All those *********** # XXX **************'s might also be a problem.

Re: FossilMan requests your feedback
 

you should be able to do a replace "Pot Limit " + cr + " - Level" with "Pot Limit - Level" but I forget how to do this in Word.

Re: FossilMan requests your feedback
 

Hello Greg, I just found this thread. I havent gotten too far but have a question about this hand.

PokerStars Game #12112769866: Tournament #70000006, $300+$20 Omaha Pot Limit
- Level II (15/30) - 2007/09/17 - 15:43:29 (ET)
Table '70000006 81' 9-max Seat #5 is the button
Seat 1: genoa_st (8625 in chips)
Seat 2: ecad (3355 in chips)
Seat 3: pool_shark_1 (5095 in chips)
Seat 4: Roothlus (18605 in chips)
Seat 5: EDWARDHOPPER (4775 in chips)
Seat 6: murmer (5300 in chips)
Seat 7: FossilMan (4435 in chips)
Seat 8: BDM.BDM.BDM (3435 in chips)
Seat 9: holla@yoboy (6000 in chips)
murmer: posts small blind 15
FossilMan: posts big blind 30
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to FossilMan [Kh 5h 7c Ad]
pool_shark_1 said, "vn"
Roothlus said, "ty"
BDM.BDM.BDM: folds
holla@yoboy: calls 30
genoa_st: folds
ecad: folds
pool_shark_1: calls 30
Roothlus: folds
EDWARDHOPPER: calls 30
murmer: calls 15
FossilMan: checks
*** FLOP *** [4d As Jh]
murmer: checks
FossilMan: checks
holla@yoboy: checks
pool_shark_1: checks
EDWARDHOPPER: checks
*** TURN *** [4d As Jh] [Ts]
murmer: checks
FossilMan: checks
holla@yoboy: checks
pool_shark_1: checks
EDWARDHOPPER: checks
*** RIVER *** [4d As Jh Ts] [Ah]
murmer: bets 150
FossilMan: folds
holla@yoboy: folds
pool_shark_1: folds
EDWARDHOPPER: folds
murmer collected 150 from pot
murmer: doesn't show hand
*** SUMMARY ***

I am just wondering why you fold here, especially in a rebuy tournament, and it was hand 29 so it was still in the rebuy period I assume.

I am obviously nowhere near as skilled in this game as you. I could never see myself folding this hand when there was no action on the flop or turn, and its a rebuy tournament.

Thanks

SB

Re: FossilMan requests your feedback
 

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1635646

I would fold after his raise on the flop,
your re-raise seems very brave here.
was it a bluff or were you just happy to get it allin vs a flush draw ?

Re: FossilMan requests your feedback
 

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1635702
The fold seems odd,
you had been raising a lot preflop with much less and then you fold this ?