more 1/2/5

[Aisthesis]

Another solid night: up a little over $500 after 4 1/2 hours, so that makes 3 back-to-back good winning sessions.

The table played quite differently tonight, with two of the players who normally push action gone. I chose a seat next to a guy who has a reputation for being very aggro, but he played the game really pretty civilized, showed a couple of bluffs in smallish pots, but didn't get crazy. The game was really more like online games, maybe slightly looser, and more like 1/4 of pots raised at all, if that much. Even in limp pots maybe an average of 5 seeing the flop. So, really not all that different from the Stars $100 on a slightly loose-passive table.

There were, however, among the relatively tight group, 2 players (one more than the other) whom I viewed as targets. Unfortunately both had position on me, and I also went through about 3 hours of catching absolutely nothing, not even anything worth bluffing. Did make a few small scores very early, but that was about it.

I reloaded a little to stay over $400, and finally decided it was pretty reasonable at this table to play with a full stack, so I rebought to be at $550 (which made my investment $700 at that point after all the bleeding away).

Having folded away for it seemed like forever, I finally picked up a hand in LP that I considered worth raising, namely 4566ss in clubs. Now at this point, the table talk was rather extreme, as I have a tight image anyway from NLHE days (any ultra-tight player is typically accused of being the second tightest player at the table, that kind of thing). What stuck out in my mind was, "Well, we know what he's got." Sweet! That worked very much to my advantage here, as the flop came K23 with two spades and a club.

I think I had raised here to $25 (I'm kind of liking 5% of stack-depth or else max, whichever is lower, as my standard raising amount), and 5 players saw the flop. Now, EP bets $70 into the pot of $125 after 2 checks. I seriously thought about raising here and probably would have if I had had clubs. I think that's really the question mark of how to play this hand. The real problem with raising is that I think they're going to put me on AA with clubs most likely. Moreover, I still have two chasy players to act and am getting great odds to draw to my wrap, on which I think I also have some excellent implied odds due to people's erroneous assumptions. So, I flat call and 2 EP players call.

On the possibility of raising the flop: With the weak-ish bet, I tend to put the bettor on some kind of K-high wrappy hand, quite possibly with spades. I also doubt he's going to give me credit for KK at this point, but he might lay down to AA with spades unless he has something like AKXY with his own spades. Anyhow, I like the call without having my flush draw and am a bit uncertain about raising if I did have it, as I'm not at all sure that I can fold out bigger flush draws at this point, and K with flush draw is probably decent favorite over my own hand. I really tend to think my overall EV is better with the flat call. And I'm not sure that meta-game considerations matter a whole lot at this point, since I'm really still not having any trouble getting action.

Turn makes things pretty easy, since it's an offsuit 4, giving me the nut straight. Checked to me, I bet $400 and get a call from one guy (the biggest target) with 2 pair who's worried about my having the wheel.

I'm at a little over $1,200 after this hand and sitting between two very good players who cover me, so I leave when the blind comes around.

That whole policy brings up another issue, namely learning to get better at deep-stack play, and on the drive back, I also thought about revising my initial buy-in upward to $500. After thinking about it a bit, I'm somewhat disinclined. First, I think starting at $400, while a bit short sometimes (depending on how many others are deeper), gives me a chance to get a feel for the table before putting more money in. And what's now obvious to me is that this game is going to play VERY differently depending on who's there. Then, once I feel fairly comfortable in my reads (probably after the first hour), go ahead and rebuy to have a healthy full stack of $500-600.

Then, for gaining some deep-stack experience, I need for a few things to happen: First, my BR is in decent shape (as it actually is now after the last few sessions, although obviously still by no means invulnerable to the variance of PLO). Second, that I make some big scores early, while I'm still fresh. That was my policy in NLHE, and it really seemed to work pretty well. Basically, if I double up early and can really think about USING my stack at the table, then it's a good time to play deep. If I've already played several hours and am more in the frame of mind that I want to protect rather than expand my stack, then it's better just to leave.

Anyhow, I feel like (in addition to some coolers, which can obviously also hit any time) sooner or later I am going to have some big scores early, and that should give me the chance to start thinking more about how to wield a deep stack at the particular game. And in the meantime, playing very TAG should make my deep-stack plays much more credible when it seems to be time to put them in motion.

Comments? suggestions? critique?