Hey Jordz, missed this diary first time round, some really interesting stuff in here, both life stuff and hand reviews.
It's annoying when the draws miss but your gut tells you not to call it off! Ace of clubs is a bad card for you to hold there though isn't it?
Blocking AT that might raise flop, so T9 or 44 most likely value?
Other than spanners I don't see many bluffs by the river (unlikely to turn KT into bluff?).
Having said that I can't spot many combos of bluff or value haha! Tough one for me for sure.
Yeah I think if a club comes on the river I’d find the fold, if a complete brick comes then I think I have to call as I’m only losing to JQ and 44, yet I’d be ahead of a load of bluffs, but the K is a tough card to bluff at given it likely helps my range just as much as my opponents as it’s unlikely I’ve called this far which AJ or 1010etc so there’s a load of 2pair and better hands in my range here.
In hindsight it’s probably one of those decisions where you should go with your gut
Decent night last night with 3 cashes from 5 events, i definitely made a few bad decisions late on in those events though so i went to bed rather frustrated, there were no real hands of interest as the hands i wasn't sure about at the time ended up being fairly obvious sub optimal plays when i looked back on them today...
as for real life stuff its been about 5 years since i updated on here and plenty has changed since but i won't bother going into too much detail, sports betting is something thats taken a lot of my time up in the last few years i have a twitter page under @JJValueHunter where i post all my thoughts and tips for free, ive also done quite a bit of writing, podcasting and analysis for a few football/betting related websites, obviously thats all dried up at the minute hence why poker has become a bigger part of my life again, ive also been a big advocate of the Football Index and have been trading on there since the website first launched. Ive taken more interest in health/nutrition as well, i went vegan for 3 months before opting to become a "flexitarian" as i knew full well i would still eat the odd steak and grab burger/kebab after a night out. Yoga/meditation has also been a great addition to my life especially since we have been in lockdown, i never actually went to a proper class as i doubt it would be my scene, but even doing it from home with youtube vids has helped a lot with my concentration and posture which are two things that were starting to decline for me beforehand.
Hey Jordz, missed this diary first time round, some really interesting stuff in here, both life stuff and hand reviews.
It's annoying when the draws miss but your gut tells you not to call it off! Ace of clubs is a bad card for you to hold there though isn't it?
Blocking AT that might raise flop, so T9 or 44 most likely value?
Other than spanners I don't see many bluffs by the river (unlikely to turn KT into bluff?).
Having said that I can't spot many combos of bluff or value haha! Tough one for me for sure.
Yeah I think if a club comes on the river I’d find the fold, if a complete brick comes then I think I have to call as I’m only losing to JQ and 44, yet I’d be ahead of a load of bluffs, but the K is a tough card to bluff at given it likely helps my range just as much as my opponents as it’s unlikely I’ve called this far which AJ or 1010etc so there’s a load of 2pair and better hands in my range here.
In hindsight it’s probably one of those decisions where you should go with your gut
Hi Jordz, good to see you back playing and posting, despite your various other interests.
Just out of interest why have you discounted KQ from his range here? I have my thoughts but would like to know a proper player's thoughts!
Hey Jordz, missed this diary first time round, some really interesting stuff in here, both life stuff and hand reviews.
It's annoying when the draws miss but your gut tells you not to call it off! Ace of clubs is a bad card for you to hold there though isn't it?
Blocking AT that might raise flop, so T9 or 44 most likely value?
Other than spanners I don't see many bluffs by the river (unlikely to turn KT into bluff?).
Having said that I can't spot many combos of bluff or value haha! Tough one for me for sure.
Yeah I think if a club comes on the river I’d find the fold, if a complete brick comes then I think I have to call as I’m only losing to JQ and 44, yet I’d be ahead of a load of bluffs, but the K is a tough card to bluff at given it likely helps my range just as much as my opponents as it’s unlikely I’ve called this far which AJ or 1010etc so there’s a load of 2pair and better hands in my range here.
In hindsight it’s probably one of those decisions where you should go with your gut
Hi Jordz, good to see you back playing and posting, despite your various other interests.
Just out of interest why have you discounted KQ from his range here? I have my thoughts but would like to know a proper player's thoughts!
hi mate!, i wouldn't completely rule KQ out but i just wouldn't expect him to reraise on the flop with KQ, as i could very well have aa, kk, aq, jq, jj etc which has him crushed, i also could have nothing and then he would miss out on potential future value down the streets, so id expect opponents to check call here with KQ maybe 90% of the time as standard. when i get reraised on any flop i pretty much put my opponent on either a super strong hand, a draw or air and top pair 2nd kicker just isn't quite strong enough to fall into the super strong category on that board
Hey Jordz, missed this diary first time round, some really interesting stuff in here, both life stuff and hand reviews.
It's annoying when the draws miss but your gut tells you not to call it off! Ace of clubs is a bad card for you to hold there though isn't it?
Blocking AT that might raise flop, so T9 or 44 most likely value?
Other than spanners I don't see many bluffs by the river (unlikely to turn KT into bluff?).
Having said that I can't spot many combos of bluff or value haha! Tough one for me for sure.
Yeah I think if a club comes on the river I’d find the fold, if a complete brick comes then I think I have to call as I’m only losing to JQ and 44, yet I’d be ahead of a load of bluffs, but the K is a tough card to bluff at given it likely helps my range just as much as my opponents as it’s unlikely I’ve called this far which AJ or 1010etc so there’s a load of 2pair and better hands in my range here.
In hindsight it’s probably one of those decisions where you should go with your gut
Hi Jordz, good to see you back playing and posting, despite your various other interests.
Just out of interest why have you discounted KQ from his range here? I have my thoughts but would like to know a proper player's thoughts!
hi mate!, i wouldn't completely rule KQ out but i just wouldn't expect him to reraise on the flop with KQ, as i could very well have aa, kk, aq, jq, jj etc which has him crushed, i also could have nothing and then he would miss out on potential future value down the streets, so id expect opponents to check call here with KQ maybe 90% of the time as standard. when i get reraised on any flop i pretty much put my opponent on either a super strong hand, a draw or air and top pair 2nd kicker just isn't quite strong enough to fall into the super strong category on that board
Well that's reassuring, that was exactly my thoughts. I hope I could fold the river there given I'm unlikely to win with one pair after 3 streets of heavy betting from my opp, in fact on the flop reraise I'm already worried, but as you said if you fold all the time in those situations it would soon be exploitable, esp as it could be a flush draw.
I took a few nights off at the end of last week as i was lacking any real desire to play so i just binged a few series on Netflix. I bought myself a Nintendo switch too this weekend, im not someone who plays many games, for me its normally just fifa or football manager, but ive been reliving a bit of my childhood by playing some Mario Kart over the weekend... I played poker sunday but was really poor, and didn't have the brain capacity to concentrate, i should have taken the night off in hindsight, today was a bit better, only played 3 MTTs and bricked them all but felt like i was playing OK so fired up some Cash tables, manage to be up 5 buy ins at 100nl after an hour, but dropped 1.5 buyins on my last hand of the evening which was a bit tilting but a good night none the less.... i did have one hand where my read was spot on but i also got incredibly lucky.
Player
Action
Cards
Amount
Pot
Balance
GBaller420
Sit out
ZGANI
Small blind
£0.50
£0.50
£49.11
superslo
Big blind
£1.00
£1.50
£106.37
Your hole cards
K
J
jordz16
Raise
£3.00
£4.50
£224.15
bellamyf
Raise
£9.00
£13.50
£136.40
hands09
Call
£9.00
£22.50
£105.79
ZGANI
Fold
superslo
Fold
jordz16
Call
£6.00
£28.50
£218.15
Flop
Q
9
5
jordz16
Check
bellamyf
Check
hands09
Bet
£14.25
£42.75
£91.54
jordz16
Raise
£35.50
£78.25
£182.65
bellamyf
Fold
hands09
Call
£21.25
£99.50
£70.29
Turn
7
jordz16
Bet
£74.63
£174.13
£108.02
hands09
All-in
£70.29
£244.42
£0.00
jordz16
Unmatched bet
£4.34
£240.08
£112.36
jordz16
Show
K
J
hands09
Show
8
K
River
A
jordz16
Win
Ace high
£238.28
£350.64
The button had been at the table for about 30 mins, they had been fairly aggro and the one thing i noticed was every bluff was a half pot bet and every value/drawing bet was a 3/4 pot bet, which was obviously very exploitable..... i was going to fold pre to the original raise but when the button called i think my call is fairly standard, on the flop the original raiser checks which i cant see them doing with any value hand, then the button half pot bets which means its likely he has air but some draws are possible but it looked a good spot to reraise y gutshot as i think i take it down fairly often and if either player shoves i can easily get away. i was a bit surprised when the button called but the turn was fairly innocuous so my thinking was he has to be on some sort of draw and the turn won't have helped unless he had 68 which would have been unlikely given the pre flop call. i decided a shove will likely get the job done a very high portion of the time surprisingly i was snap called and assumed i was virtually dead but somehow had the best hand.
id have liked to have taken the villains name off of this but not sure how?
Fun hand. I think we need our read on bet size to be super solid to make a play like this and I don't think it can be after only 30 minutes. If the button is bet happy it is extremely possible/ likely Bellamy checks a lot of strong hands to him, which I think changes this from an okay play to being probably bad. On the turn vs this player type you probably don't have tons of fold equity but fair play for going for it. Given the hand he showed up with it wouldn't surprise me to see JT KT also call you off. But it probably also means any pair calls. All in all there's gonna be better spots to go for vs this player type. But I suppose it was the first time you saw a showdown so wild.
Fun hand. I think we need our read on bet size to be super solid to make a play like this and I don't think it can be after only 30 minutes. If the button is bet happy it is extremely possible/ likely Bellamy checks a lot of strong hands to him, which I think changes this from an okay play to being probably bad. On the turn vs this player type you probably don't have tons of fold equity but fair play for going for it. Given the hand he showed up with it wouldn't surprise me to see JT KT also call you off. But it probably also means any pair calls. All in all there's gonna be better spots to go for vs this player type. But I suppose it was the first time you saw a showdown so wild.
What I would add is in that time I believe he hadn’t folded a single hand pre flop, so obviously his range was completely uncapped, when he hit a pair or draw it was a FP bet and when he missed it was generally half pot and he’d fold to a RR this was the first time I’d seen him not fold to the RR which was why I was fairly comfortable with my raise on the flop but not at all sure with my play on the river.another thing I wasn’t sure of was whether I should play slightly tighter with the knowledge il very likely get paid off with any sort of big hand, or to be looking to jump into lots of pots with speculative hands knowing this guy will unlikely be around for too long therefore I need to maximise my chances of being the one to stack him but risk getting into tricky spots against tougher players?
I would definitely be looking to play a lot of speculative hands vs this kind of player, like you say it's very much a race to see who is gonna get his money because playing every hand isn't the most sustainable strategy. Even your most speculative hands are gonna be doing decent vs his range and you're going to navigate post-flop so much better than he is.
I had a play around on Sharkscope today for the first time in a while and noticed i havent featured on any of the leaderboards since 2017 when i used to take poker more seriously, i think a good target for me this year would be to break into the top 10 for profit come the end of the year, im currently sitting 11th which im more than happy with and i know il never be able to match the big dogs in terms of volume/hours played but hopefully i can get lucky in a high roller sometime this year and give myself a good chance, that seems like a good goal for me that will hopefully insentivise me to up my volume if i start dropping down that leaderboard.
Something else i noticed was my Sng results, i always assumed i was a break even player at them given ive only really played them during promos, and i was virtually spot on, id played 9,605 of them, with an average stake of £13.07 which means ive staked £128,419 playing them, and have a profit of £33.30!. surely thats as break even as you can get over such a high portion of games, even 2k either way would have felt like break even.
Anyway at least i know i need to improve my SNG game if i am to bother playing them anymore.
This was an exit hand from the other night, and one that i was fairly unsure of from start to finish, the villain had been very active but i didn't have any specific notes on them. we were well into the money, and maybe 15-25 players left roughly, Preflop im fine with, on the flop i feel i have to bet to defend against any rag spade getting a cheap card, when i get raised there are obvious alarm bells id expect him to do this with some small flushes, sets, any hand with the A of spades, potentially some A3/A5 hands, some mid pairs and maybe some complete air hands, i feel if i fold the flop then im too exploitable long term especially against an active player, when they bet big on the turn and basically commit themselves im either dead or way ahead, im not sure how often an opponent would fire again with a bare A of spades but i guess it would be a decent amount of time, but i can rule out smaller pairs at this stage and i think a3/a5 would likely have given up too as would most air hands, so would anyone else be folding here on the turn or even the flop?
I think you could consider playing check on the flop and delay bet/bet if he checks back or call 3 streets facing aggression on a bunch of runouts. Think betting is also okay. I might go closer to third pot and then size up more on turns.
Annoying getting raised. I guess if you were to fold it'd be an attempted exploit, you probably have to continue one street. We should have some hands that call a flop raise and fold the turn so I guess this might be the one. On the turn facing pot I agree you're either dead or ahead. I think the thing is though when we're behind we always lose and when we aren't he probably has close to 30%. Another thing is that while some opponent's would find bluffs here, some would never find bluffs, so I think you just have to fold here vs population and get bluffed sometimes and reward someone who is ballsy enough to have the bluff here. Even vs someone capable of finding bluffs I think you probably have to fold.
Not managed to play much poker this week as i have been battling a bit of toothache, when i have played its been pretty poor, a couple of final tables yesterday means a break even week overall. hopefully il be able to play on sunday at the very least as i have been enjoying my poker more of late... with lockdown being eased im hoping it doesn't affect the poker traffic on here too much although that is probably wishful thinking especially with the improved weather.
Im really excited for the Bundesliga return tomorrow, it will be interesting to see the effect behind closed doors causes, hopefully there will be a few opportunities to capitalise on any angles it throws up, 1 bookie offering odds in the throw-in market is most interesting to me so far, with only 4 ball boys allowed id be expecting the ball to be in play far less than the 61mins average, yet the prices available are identical to before lockdown, so hopefully the unders prove profitable tomorrow.
I had a really interesting hand on another site over the weekend..
it was 6 handed, blinds 50-100 quite early stages, myself and 2 villains have roughly 15k
im on the button with 44, theres a min raise open and a call, i decide to pop it up to 700 (my normal line is to flat but il raise a small % of the time to stay balanced)
both players call my 3bet
flop comes 4d 10c jc
checks round to me and i bet 1,200
i get raised to 2,800 by the pre flop opener, and then the pre flop caller raises again to 6,200
i wasn't really sure what to do here as 1010 and JJ make up a huge part of both their ranges but folding a set on a flop in a 3bet pot in an MTT just seems horrible.
its certainly possible that one of the players has a hand like AQcc and the other a slow played aa/kk etc but i don't really see either of these players having any stone bluffs.
would be interested to see what others would do in this spot.
Im really excited for the Bundesliga return tomorrow, it will be interesting to see the effect behind closed doors causes, hopefully there will be a few opportunities to capitalise on any angles it throws up, 1 bookie offering odds in the throw-in market is most interesting to me so far, with only 4 ball boys allowed id be expecting the ball to be in play far less than the 61mins average, yet the prices available are identical to before lockdown, so hopefully the unders prove profitable tomorrow.
--------------------------------
Is the same with card markets? I,ve laid off them while games being played behind closed doors
Im really excited for the Bundesliga return tomorrow, it will be interesting to see the effect behind closed doors causes, hopefully there will be a few opportunities to capitalise on any angles it throws up, 1 bookie offering odds in the throw-in market is most interesting to me so far, with only 4 ball boys allowed id be expecting the ball to be in play far less than the 61mins average, yet the prices available are identical to before lockdown, so hopefully the unders prove profitable tomorrow.
--------------------------------
Is the same with card markets? I,ve laid off them while games being played behind closed doors
cards have remained stable, i did a drop off due to lack of intensity of BCD games, but that seems to have been balanced out by the fact refs can hear any slight dissent as well as the sound of crunching tackles which may be influencing decisions.
corners and throw ins are both down slightly but its still too small of a sample size to be sure it will stay that way
home advantage looks to be lessened but most people expected that and im sure the bookies were already factoring that in.
5 months since i last posted!, no idea where that time went, very much distracted by the return of football and other real life stuff meant poker has been on the backburner for a while, i think i went close to 2 months without playing a single MTT at one point. Ive just seen a UKOPS coming up so im going to try and play as much of that as possible, as well as posting any interesting hands that appear between now and the end of UKOPS
My goal for this year was a top 10 finish on the MTT profit leaderboard, currently sitting 12th so its within reach, UKOPS will pretty much be make or break as i doubt il squeeze too much poker in before the end of the year. Ive only played 387 tournaments so far this year which is really disappointing as i was hoping to play at least 1,000 but the desire to play just simply hasnt been there and when i have been playing ive been incredibly distracted. Going to try and prioritise poker for a couple of weeks and see if i can get that enjoyment back that i had in the early days when i used to eat, drink and sleep poker!.
great to see the UKOPS leaderboard return, even without any monetary incentive i always found the introduction of a leaderboard provided that extra impetus to play and attempt to play well in events you might normally not bother with
Comments
In hindsight it’s probably one of those decisions where you should go with your gut
as for real life stuff its been about 5 years since i updated on here and plenty has changed since but i won't bother going into too much detail, sports betting is something thats taken a lot of my time up in the last few years i have a twitter page under @JJValueHunter where i post all my thoughts and tips for free, ive also done quite a bit of writing, podcasting and analysis for a few football/betting related websites, obviously thats all dried up at the minute hence why poker has become a bigger part of my life again, ive also been a big advocate of the Football Index and have been trading on there since the website first launched.
Ive taken more interest in health/nutrition as well, i went vegan for 3 months before opting to become a "flexitarian" as i knew full well i would still eat the odd steak and grab burger/kebab after a night out. Yoga/meditation has also been a great addition to my life especially since we have been in lockdown, i never actually went to a proper class as i doubt it would be my scene, but even doing it from home with youtube vids has helped a lot with my concentration and posture which are two things that were starting to decline for me beforehand.
Just out of interest why have you discounted KQ from his range here? I have my thoughts but would like to know a proper player's thoughts!
when i get reraised on any flop i pretty much put my opponent on either a super strong hand, a draw or air and top pair 2nd kicker just isn't quite strong enough to fall into the super strong category on that board
on the flop the original raiser checks which i cant see them doing with any value hand, then the button half pot bets which means its likely he has air but some draws are possible but it looked a good spot to reraise y gutshot as i think i take it down fairly often and if either player shoves i can easily get away.
i was a bit surprised when the button called but the turn was fairly innocuous so my thinking was he has to be on some sort of draw and the turn won't have helped unless he had 68 which would have been unlikely given the pre flop call. i decided a shove will likely get the job done a very high portion of the time surprisingly i was snap called and assumed i was virtually dead but somehow had the best hand.
id have liked to have taken the villains name off of this but not sure how?
Something else i noticed was my Sng results, i always assumed i was a break even player at them given ive only really played them during promos, and i was virtually spot on, id played 9,605 of them, with an average stake of £13.07 which means ive staked £128,419 playing them, and have a profit of £33.30!. surely thats as break even as you can get over such a high portion of games, even 2k either way would have felt like break even.
Anyway at least i know i need to improve my SNG game if i am to bother playing them anymore.
This was an exit hand from the other night, and one that i was fairly unsure of from start to finish, the villain had been very active but i didn't have any specific notes on them. we were well into the money, and maybe 15-25 players left roughly, Preflop im fine with, on the flop i feel i have to bet to defend against any rag spade getting a cheap card, when i get raised there are obvious alarm bells id expect him to do this with some small flushes, sets, any hand with the A of spades, potentially some A3/A5 hands, some mid pairs and maybe some complete air hands, i feel if i fold the flop then im too exploitable long term especially against an active player, when they bet big on the turn and basically commit themselves im either dead or way ahead, im not sure how often an opponent would fire again with a bare A of spades but i guess it would be a decent amount of time, but i can rule out smaller pairs at this stage and i think a3/a5 would likely have given up too as would most air hands, so would anyone else be folding here on the turn or even the flop?
Annoying getting raised. I guess if you were to fold it'd be an attempted exploit, you probably have to continue one street. We should have some hands that call a flop raise and fold the turn so I guess this might be the one. On the turn facing pot I agree you're either dead or ahead. I think the thing is though when we're behind we always lose and when we aren't he probably has close to 30%. Another thing is that while some opponent's would find bluffs here, some would never find bluffs, so I think you just have to fold here vs population and get bluffed sometimes and reward someone who is ballsy enough to have the bluff here. Even vs someone capable of finding bluffs I think you probably have to fold.
Im really excited for the Bundesliga return tomorrow, it will be interesting to see the effect behind closed doors causes, hopefully there will be a few opportunities to capitalise on any angles it throws up, 1 bookie offering odds in the throw-in market is most interesting to me so far, with only 4 ball boys allowed id be expecting the ball to be in play far less than the 61mins average, yet the prices available are identical to before lockdown, so hopefully the unders prove profitable tomorrow.
it was 6 handed, blinds 50-100 quite early stages, myself and 2 villains have roughly 15k
im on the button with 44, theres a min raise open and a call, i decide to pop it up to 700 (my normal line is to flat but il raise a small % of the time to stay balanced)
both players call my 3bet
flop comes 4d 10c jc
checks round to me and i bet 1,200
i get raised to 2,800 by the pre flop opener, and then the pre flop caller raises again to 6,200
i wasn't really sure what to do here as 1010 and JJ make up a huge part of both their ranges but folding a set on a flop in a 3bet pot in an MTT just seems horrible.
its certainly possible that one of the players has a hand like AQcc and the other a slow played aa/kk etc but i don't really see either of these players having any stone bluffs.
would be interested to see what others would do in this spot.
Im really excited for the Bundesliga return tomorrow, it will be interesting to see the effect behind closed doors causes, hopefully there will be a few opportunities to capitalise on any angles it throws up, 1 bookie offering odds in the throw-in market is most interesting to me so far, with only 4 ball boys allowed id be expecting the ball to be in play far less than the 61mins average, yet the prices available are identical to before lockdown, so hopefully the unders prove profitable tomorrow.
--------------------------------
Is the same with card markets? I,ve laid off them while games being played behind closed doors
Is the same with card markets? I,ve laid off them while games being played behind closed doors
cards have remained stable, i did a drop off due to lack of intensity of BCD games, but that seems to have been balanced out by the fact refs can hear any slight dissent as well as the sound of crunching tackles which may be influencing decisions.
corners and throw ins are both down slightly but its still too small of a sample size to be sure it will stay that way
home advantage looks to be lessened but most people expected that and im sure the bookies were already factoring that in.
My goal for this year was a top 10 finish on the MTT profit leaderboard, currently sitting 12th so its within reach, UKOPS will pretty much be make or break as i doubt il squeeze too much poker in before the end of the year. Ive only played 387 tournaments so far this year which is really disappointing as i was hoping to play at least 1,000 but the desire to play just simply hasnt been there and when i have been playing ive been incredibly distracted. Going to try and prioritise poker for a couple of weeks and see if i can get that enjoyment back that i had in the early days when i used to eat, drink and sleep poker!.
great to see the UKOPS leaderboard return, even without any monetary incentive i always found the introduction of a leaderboard provided that extra impetus to play and attempt to play well in events you might normally not bother with