poker journal : the plot to game select

 about to play some pok-ah.


for this session my goals will be to game select. to straddle $10 and $25 so I can find the best games at both levels. no more than 6 tables. no more than 1 hour. do a post session recap. take notes on all mental game events.

alright. lets go.



session recap :


session went well. some ups and downs.

this hand was my biggest victory of the session. 



This hand demonstrates one way to print money in PLO, stacking off with dominating draws vs dominated draws. Villain's flop play is nonsensical, basically just hoping to luckbox one of his eight outs on the turn despite not getting anywhere near the right odds to draw. And if he hits a jack he loses to my higher straight.

His postflop error stems from his weak preflop hand selection. 9754 is a bad hand precisely because it hits the bottom end of things. And it is just janky looking. On the flop we are an 83.41% favourite, and we get $8.5 committed so now the pot is bloated and villain will have a bad decision to make on any turn. 

Our holding, every out that it hits for a straight is the nuts. And in addition to this all important fact, we have a pair of jacks, so if we brick it out we still win. Villain needs a miracle 6 - and then to hold against a substantial redraw - if he is going to win. That is quite the parlay.


Here was my biggest loss. This hand was actually a little depressing. Okay, so we lost a flip as a 55% favourite. That is just run of the mill stuff. But how the heck does villain even find the stack off with AA on this board in this first place! And how do we brick after that delicious 6h turn giving us both flush draws, a pair, and a gut shot vs just a pair of aces. Talk about having the world. Sigh. 



But in terms of the technical decisions made in the hand, our play was sound. We raise out of the SB vs a button limper. This a clear raise. We have a huge hand and want to start increasing the size of the pot. We get three bet and then the limper cold calls. This hand plays very well against a three bet.

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