Kochan

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The tension, the drama, the buzz, the crowd, the mistake

By Kochan - Jan 22 2009, 04:47 PM

So I started day 2 with 95k chips, perfect position with around 300 players left. My table was nice and soft with mainly stacks with 20bb’s and no-one particularly good or aggressive. In the first level and a half I slowly increased my stack to 110k playing a fair few pots but not making many hands. Soon after that my table got broken and I moved to the table of death. Somehow my healthy 110k stack was only the 5th biggest on my table and I was caught in between some good young players, Zach Gruenberg and Noah Schwartz who had at least 150k each. On the previous table there was generally only one raiser and maybe one caller to each hand, this table there were raisers and callers and 3-bettors and lots of action. My first hand came up with Noah Schartz opening UTG+1 to 2300 at 400/800. I called behind with 87cl and the bb, a young Japanese guy also called. Flop came 436dd and bb lead out for 2k. Noah Scwhartz thought for a while and then made the call and I called as well. Turn comes a 10, a pretty good card giving me a double gutter and this time bb lead out 2500. Schwartz called again and I called. The river came a 7 and the bb tanked for a while and bet out 5500 with Schwartz again making the call. So now action is on me and I’m clearly not ahead. Thing is that I don’t really believe the Japanese guy with a 5 here because his river bet is just so small against 2 players, about half pot. It feels like he has a 76 sort of hand and Schwartz seems to have just played the hand cautuiously with a pair like 8s 9s or even Js. I decide to make it 21k and am quickly called by the Japanese guy with 45off for the straight. OOOOPS!

So back I go to around 80ishk where I stay till the end of the level not getting dealt any hands of any sort. At 500/1000 I raise 109d and continuation bet a Q 4 2 and then give up on the turn sending me back down to 70k. Things are not going according to plan. Noah Schwartz who has been one of the more active players raises utg+1 and it folds to me on the cutoff with JJ where I flat call. The flop comes 882 and he bets out 5.5k. I think for a while and decide that its go time. I’m not happy about it but I dont feel as though I can flat call and allow a Q/K/A come off on the turn and then fold. In addition my hand is very underrepresented and he’s going to have a hard time deciding what to do with 6s, 7s,9s, 10s. I make it 14.5k and he tanks for ages before throwing down his hand. He later told me he folded 9s. Damn those good young online players. Against most live players I probably double up there. Later on in the level a middle aged Irish guy with a big stack who had also been quite active raises UTG to 3000. Again I pick up JJ on the button and flat call. Flop comes down 10 3 2 rainbow and he checks to me. I bet 4800 and he thinks for a while before rolling out 15k. This play makes almost no sense really. If he has JJ,QQ,KK,AA its very unlikely he plays it this way and loses a potential street of value on the flop , especially since I have shown a tendency to check behind often. He can’t have 10s or a set because he would just check/call not reraise on the absolutely nothing flop. I pretty much put him on air or maybe a mid pair and I reraise to 55k. He decides to stare me down which pretty much indicates to me that he doesn’t believe that I have a hand but he knows he doesn’t have a hand either. It makes me regret making my 3bet so big and not leaving enough fold equity. If i had my time over again I would probably make it 42k or so. He eventually folds and my comeback continues. I’m back at 110k

Towards the end of the level Noah Schwartz limps UTG+1 and I limp K10cl behind. 1 other limper and the blinds both come in for some 5 way action. Flop comes Qcl Jcl 10. HUUUUUUUUGE FLOP. Pair and royal flush draw ftw! Schwartz makes it 3.5k and I reraise to 8k. Everyone folds back to him where he thinks for a while and rolls out a 4 bet to 20k. I go into the tank and try and break down the hand. He limped here so I cant really put him on AK for the flopped straight. It seems very unlikely that he has 89 as well because his 4bet is so small he’ s not getting me off any sort of draw I might have. If he were to have 89 he would have to make it at least 30k in my opinion. So that leave QJ the most likely possibility or Q10. He’s definately way too good to limp early position with K9 there. So facing his hands of QJ/Q10 I feel as though if I flat call here and 1 of my outs hits the turn, its going to be very easy for him to get off the hand. I also think I’ve got plenty of fold equity against QJ and feel as though he’s unlikely to get it in for a 220k pot. I reraise to 72k indicating that I’m going with this hand. He seems really disgusted and thinks for ages. I get the feeling that he really doesn’t want to fold. Looks down at his cards a few times before folding and saying ‘I can’t believe I’m gonna fold this hand’. He folds and I decide to show my hand and he reels back. ‘I folded JJ’ he says. Wow. So insane gross that he limped JJ there and folded when he flopped a set. Realistically the only hands I play that hand that way are 98 and K10cl so hes never really ahead but still its a very disgusting fold. I’m relieved I don’t have to get it in and race for 230k chips. I’ll take my 135k at the dinner break.

Shortly after the dinner break after folding for the first 3 rounds I decide its time for my inaugral 3bet pre and look for a spot. It seems as though 3betting Schwartz in position is my best play because alot of the other players have a tendency to call 3bets out of position and cause trouble. Also I figure having played so many hands with Schwartz he’d give me more respect for a hand thinking that I wouldn’t want to tango with him light given our history. I raises to 4000 and I look down at 46d on the button and make it 11500. He calls relatively quickly. OK. Flop comes down 3d 3 4 and he checks to me. I make it 15k. He looks down at his chips and reraises me to 35k. I can’t put him on a gigantic hand here and I figure I should call here and continue my line of JJ-AA. I call and the turn is the Ad and he checks to me. This is a really strange card for me. It gives me outs to my flush and I find it hard to bet since I can’t really represent AK so it negates what I’m trying to represent. I check behind as I would if I had any of JJ-AA here and the river comes a 7. I miss. He checks to me. His hand appears to be 8s-10s here and I feel as though I have represented my hand well enough here to get him to fold those relatively easily. I bet 44k and he seems quite frustrated. ‘I can’t beat you in a pot. You must be the best player in the world.’ I already have visions of rolling over the 6d if he folds but suprisingly he calls. He turns over QQ and I am pwned. I’ve thought a fair bit about this hand and spoken to some people about it. I think it was a case of thinking too much about my hand and not thinking enough about his. As one person told me, raising the flop for information is not a play that young players use very much and when he did it I should have given him more credit for a hand than 8s-10s. If anything he would most likely flat these hands on the flop. So I guess it is a mistake from me but not really one I can beat myself up about too much. I wasn’t unhappy with the way I played the hand and if I hit an 11 outer I could’ve been up to 220k instead of down to 35k. Such is poker.

With 35k at 800/1600 I still felt like I was in it. But as usual picked up absolutely nothing and dropped to 20k without playing a hand before going out A6<A9 missing a 14 outer to chop the river. So now I sit deciding whether to play the 6max 2k tourney in 1hr.

Pros:- I avoid having to be forced to drink Sambucca by roomates when we go out tonight (def. no1 reason)

-I like 6max

- I don’t have alot to do today apart from watch the cricket which I can do while I play

Cons: - I hate live poker

- Got a flight tommorrow at 11am which I would miss if I make day two

- I’ll probably bust out within 8hrs and will still have to drink Sambucca

Pending…

Kochan

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Warning: May contain whinging/ranting

By Kochan - Jan 15 2009, 06:14 AM

It was time for a change. I’m not usually superstitious but a 0/15 live record in Melbourne called for drastic measures. I had to do everything different today. I didn’t eat nutella on white bread, I ate peanut butter and honey on brown. I conditioned my hair. I wore shoes instead of thongs. I was ready for the 1k rebuy.

I get there and rebuy straight away and there is only me and a youngish american guy at my table when the cards go in the air. First hand I pick up A10 and raise to 150 and the stubborn American refuses to let me have it and calls from BB. Flop comes Q105. He checks to me and i fire 200 and he calls. Turn Q. He leads for 400 and I make the call. River comes a 3 and he bets out 1k. SIGHHHHHHHH. I think for a while. It sort of feels like KJ. I call and he announces ‘nuts’ and rolls over his Q10. So much for fuckin superstition. The rest of the players at my table take their seats and I decide not to rebuy for the moment and stay at around 1.4k.

In the next action hand utg+1 limped, another player limped and late position player made it 100. One player called behind and I called with KJcl in sb. The original limper then moved all in for 375. The raiser flatted and the player behind him also called. I was slighly confused at why the raiser, a young looking guy wouldn’t just isolate all in here. I decided to move all in assuming that his hand wasn’t strong and the caller behind him was most probably dead money. After some time the raiser made the call and so did the player behind. OOOOPS! I rolled over KJ and was amazed to see I was pretty much favourite against utg limp raisers’ 87off, raisers 109s and callers 5s. SUUUURELY! First card peeled off a J. Followed by 87 to compete two pair for the limp/raiser and a straight for 109. Nice try Ko.

I was forced to double rebuy alot earlier than I had hoped for. A couple of nothing rounds later 2 people limped to me on the button and I limped 34d. 5 of us took the flop and it came down K64 with 1 diamond and it checked to me. I bet 175 and sb made the call. The turn came a 3 and sb lead for 400. I quickly shoved for 500 more and he snap called me with 63. Back down to 1600 and it isn’t even the end of the first level yet. This is not good.

I made a plan for myself. Keep it tightish and just look to get it in preflop with decent hands and only look to gambol it up with 15 minutes left in the rebuy period. I saw nothing for about 30minutes and with about 12min left I found QQ utg. No-one had been open shoving and I had relatively tight image so I limped utg and hoped for a squeezer. Two players limped behind me and the flop came down 10s 9s 3. The blinds checked and I checked. Late position player made it 150, the American guy called and it folded back to me. I jammed it in for about 1300 and the raiser folded and the American guy began to tank it. He asked for the dealer to put the raise aside from the pot (a new live player trend as they pretend to act as if they understand pot odds etc). ‘You’re not getting pot odds if that’s what your trying to work out’ I said. ‘Yer but what if I’m ahead’ he replied. ‘Well then pot odds are irrelevant then aren’t they?’. ‘Ok. I call’ he announced and flipped over J9. The turn came 8 and river J completing a 1 card straight for me and sending me back to >3k chips. With 10minutes left I won a couple of nice pots with top pair and somehow ended the rebuy period with 5.5k and 8.5k after my double addon. Huge relief.

After the rebuy period I lost 3 straight hands with mid pairs dropping down to 6.5k. I raised 4’s from utg+2 and was called by the old Aussie guy behind me. Flop came 10d 5 4d. WOOOO. I bet 450 and he called. Turn came Jh. I considered check raising but stuck to the more conventional approach and fired out 1300. He called quite quickly. The river came a nice blank 6 and I bet out 2600. He called again and I slammed down the effective nuts. He grunted and mucked.

Not much else happened for that level and we moved to 75/150. Young american raises the cutoff and I looked down at AK on bb. I reraised him to 2100 not really wanting a call but happy to get it in preflop. He called of course. The flop came K 10 4. Way to hit a flop under pressure. I bet out 3200 and he folded relatively quickly. I was 15k which I remained at until the break.

First hand back from the break I picked up 88 and flatted an utg+1 raiser. Flop came 922 and he bet 800 and I called. Turn came a 10 and we both checked it. Cmon keep it low please. Q on the river and he leads out for 1600. Being the calling station I am I pay him off and he turns over KJ. Sigh.

The level went by and I had absolutely nothing and hovered around 12k. The last level before the dinner break was 200/400/50 and the young american guy raised utg+1. I looked down at AK again (only 2nd time I had it). He had about 5500 so seemed like quite an easy reraise/call situation. I made it 1900 trying to give the allusion of possible fold equity. He moved all in and I called only for him to show AA. So shattered. The flop came Q 10 x and he reeled back like I had just made an open ended straight flush draw or something. He walked away from the table and closed his eyes. Like cmon really? Seriously? Get your hand off it. I bricked the next two cards and I was just happy that this American could breathe again. Not really. I shook my ahead till the dinner break about 20minutes later.

First hand back from the dinner break I picked up KQ in the cutoff and raised it to 800 at 150/300/50. The button threw in 4k more enough to put me all in. I didn’t really want to call but I hate raise/folding there because he’s showing 9s-Js enough. I called and he showed AK. Flop came down Axx and I exited witha 0/16 record.

Needless to say I was pretty cut. Amazingly I haven’t had AA or KK in 18hrs of live tournament poker. I think Grant Levy asks the dealers to recheck the deck if he hasn’t had it in 18 minutes.

Melbourne is the shittest state ever in Australia. Give me Tasmania anyday. Melbourne is the nut low. So they got some sports stadiums. It’s overriden by the pride they take in the Yarra, or trams, or the rediculous weather. OK enough ranting.

I got the 1600 bounty tourney tmoz which I somehow have to find a positive state of mind about. I’ll do my best. Lets hope the title of my next blog is ‘I heart Melbourne’

Kochan

http://kochanpoker.wordpress.com/2009/01/15/warning-may-contain-whingingranting/

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Life tilt mode

By Kochan - Jan 10 2009, 05:14 PM

Nothing particularly good ever seems to happen to me in Melbourne. I must say I quite enjoy my life in Sydney, why would I even bother coming over here? First off we are in the season of summer, there’s really no reason for me to have to take a jumper or jacket with me interstate. Or so I thought. I’ve been freezing my ass off here fr0m as soon as I stepped off the plane. What kind of rediculous Australian state is 17 degrees with high winds in summer. It’s un-Australian in my opinion. Then you get to the casino and you would think that they keep the temperatures cool but pleasant. Wrong again. I played my first event in the poker room yesterday and shivered the entire time. I don’t really see the logic behind it. Everytime I went to bet my hand was shaking uncontrollably, everyone must’ve thought that I was really nervous, or had a monster hand, or had Parkinsons.

The event was the $1100 NL Event 1. I started pretty solid moving from a starting stack of 5k to 7k pretty early before moving back to 5k just as quickly. In the third level (75/150) a middle aged Paul ‘Fatty’ Vautin lookalike raised utg with a 3.5k stack. Utg+1 with 1.5k called and the chip leader at our table called from mid position. I looked down at 34h on the button and the 4 of us saw the flop. It came down 6s 5s 2. BANG! All in announces the utg player. I’m also all in says the utg +1 player. I’m doing all I can to look as disinterested as possible as the player in mid position goes into the tank. He folds and I call and quickly turn over THE NUTZ. Utg player shows 10s. Utg+ 1 player turns over….10s. MBN to be me. I only have to dodge running spades. Turn comes a 2. I’m the only one of the 3 of us that realise that they’ve actually turned outs against me. Luckily the river bricks and I’m up to 12k early.

Over the next 4hrs nothing particularly exciting happens as I move between 10k-12k and move tables 5 times. I lose 9s<2s all in pre to go to 18k but other than that I don’t really get involved. At 600-1200/100 I have 14k. It folds to a young guy on sb who shoves for 6.5k. I have Q5 on bb and feel as though my hand is good enough vs his range which is most likely 80ish% of hands. He turns over A10 and leaves me drawing dead to runner runner on the flop. I shove one hand on the table before moving tables for the 6th time.

Being able to play good shortstack poker in live tournaments is a huge advantage over the majority of live players who don’t really have a concept of 10bbs and the range of hands you would shove in various positions on the table. Its now the last level of the day and I shove K10 and 10s and don’t get any callers. Big stack limps at 800/1600 and I shove 14k with A2s. He tanks then folds an A face up. I show my A trying to gain the image that I’m not shoving total crap and he made a good fold. I shove 8s and get folds again and now I’m up to 19k with 20minutes left in the day. I pick up AQ utg and shove it all in. Sb asks for a count and then makes the call with JJ. First all in for my tournament life and I’m feeling pretty confident. Flop comes 234 rainbow. 5 will do! Turn comes a 2. I’m still feeling it. River…….8. GG me just short of bagging my chips again. Needless to say I was pretty cut. More angry actually. But after whinging to Teek for a good 10minutes I sort of felt less sorry for myself and more sorry for him having to listen to me.

Dinner and arcade games managed to de-tilt me. That was until I got back to my room and read my emails. I have been trying to get my proof of completion for my Commerce degree so that I could enrol in a post-grad marketing course at UTS. The email I received back informed me, much to my suprise, that I haden’t in fact completed my Commerce degree at UNSW. I went through the course handbook and found that I was short 12 units of free electives. This pretty much put me over the edge and into full blown life tilt mode. Unfortunately I can’t really blame anyone but myself. I’ve enrolled in the 2 courses for the next semester now so I should be done by the end of that but who knows. The UNSW criterea for completing subjects is so fucking completed I probably can’t do 2nd year subjects from the management facultly on Wednesdays when I finished all my Marketing courses on a Thursday. But I’ll probably only find that out once I’ve completed it.

Anyway, I have recovered from the past 24hrs. I generally feel that most things happen for a reason. To be honest I was having major second thoughts about doing my post grad degree so maybe it’s a blessing in disguise. As for poker I’ve got the limit omaha hi/lo and horse events coming up which I’m looking forward too because its the first non NLHE events I’ve ever played live. Hopefully Melbourne has some suprises in store for me over the next 2 weeks!

Kochan

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GG 2008

By Kochan - Jan 01 2009, 11:11 PM

And that’s all there was for 2008. I finished the year with a pretty decent Monday coming 2nd in the PP High Roller for 10.5k and 9th in the 109r for 3k. Whilst I complained/whinged consistently throughout the year I definately have to accept that overall it was a very good year for me.

Good news is I’ve still left myself plenty of room for improvement. Results wise I’m hoping 2009 will be the year I can crack a 4 figure live score (fingers crossed). Online this year I managed to show some much improved tilt control in MTT’s. In all other forms of poker my tilt control was non existant. In fact often I would use other games as a form of tilt control.

This year I went through several periods where I would play a new game, crush it for the first couple of days, proclaim myself as the best player of this game in the poker world and then have one bad session, go on tilt and be back to even or down for that game. I did this for 2/4nl 6max a numerous times, 5/10nl 6max, 2/4 and 3/6 nl hu, limit omaha hi/lo, nl hu sngs and 7card stud hi/lo hu sngs. It would be nice to actually get genuinely good at one of these games this year.

Also my game selection for those games could have been better. I repeatedly thought it would be fun to play tatta at hu omaha hi/lo sngs on stars even though he hasn’t lost a game there since about 2004. I also thought it would be fun to play Jen Harman at a $500 HORSE hu sng (I won woo!). Nevertheless my game selection is not the best. But seriously, who can be bothered to scan around and see what table all the fish are playing? I just wanna play poker.

I leave for Melbourne on the 9th where I’ll probably play a fair few lead up events. I’m looking foward to plonking my ass down, hookin up the ipod and grinding it out!

Kochan

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Kochan's Blog

The tension, the drama, the buzz, the crowd, the mistake

Warning: May contain whinging/ranting

Life tilt mode

GG 2008