My Time Is Coming: Report 9 or Storm Before the Calm

Bovada 0.1/0.25 and 0.25/0.5 NLHE Zone 6-Max

I’ve been working on a sort of smash-and-grab approach to Zone Poker where I stop playing after ten or fifteen minutes (or less). Not exactly ratholing; I don’t immediately jump back in the game, but I do leave when variance hits me with a good session. Remind me not to get all-in with [jx tx]. Overall, not a good week on the tables, -7BB over about 2.5K hands: -0.28BB/100. Session 17 was particularly brutal. On the first Zone hand, you’re always in as BB. I had [5c 5s], actioon folds to the button, who raises to 3.5x, I call and hit a set on [5h kc 7h], check and call another half-pot bet. Turn is [js], I check, he bets pot, I shove, he has top two and rivers [ks] for full house over full house. Eight hands later, after I buy back in, I had [kd ad] in SB, and a stack of about 40BB. Button raises 3x, I 3-bet to 9x, he shoves with a 140K stack, I call, he has [ah qh] and makes [qs] on the flop. Yes, it’s just poker, but the downside of Zone is that the bad beats (as well as the good) come a lot closer together.

Session 1: Ten minutes. 39 hands. -50BB
Session 2: Twenty-eight minutes. 82 hands. +20BB.
Session 3: Forty-eight minutes. 233 hands. -60BB.
Session 4: Twenty-three minutes. 104 hands. -60BB.
Session 5: Six minutes. 21 hands. +59BB.
Session 6: Fifteen minutes. 60 hands. +61BB.
Session 7: Twelve minutes. 63 hands. +7BB.
Session 8: Seven minutes. 40 hands. +1BB.
Session 9: Four minutes. 21 hands. +58BB.
Session 10: Thirteen minutes. 53 hands. +128BB.
Session 11: Twenty minutes. 72 hands. -100BB.
Session 12: Twenty-four minutes. 124 hands. -100BB.
Session 13: Thirty-four minutes. 192 hands. +52BB
Session 14: Five minutes. 22 hands. +72BB.
Session 15: Twenty-six minutes. 121 hands. +68BB.
Session 16: Eleven minutes. 29 hands +69BB.
Session 17: Six minutes. 8 hands. -120BB.
Session 18: Eight minutes. 14 hands. -60BB.
Session 19: Twenty-three minutes. 72 hands. -36BB.
Session 20: Seven minutes. 24 hands. +32BB.
Session 21: Twenty-three minutes. 98 hands. +72BB.
Session 22: Thirteen minutes. 48 hands. -120BB.

Bovada 0.05/0.1 PLO

Big hand for me was [jd ah 8s 7s]. Not much to look at, but I called a UTG1 raise from SB along with BB, flopped [9s kh jh], and everyone checked through the [3d] turn and [as] river. I bet my two pair, UTG went all-in with [ah 4s 3s 6c] and a worse two pair, and gave up nearly 30BB on the river alone.

Nineteen minutes. 19 hands. +37BB.

Bovada 0.05/0.1 PLO8

A rundown of [5c 6c 8s 7d] was the winner here, though not because I made the straight. No, a short-stack with [tc js ac 4s] made a pre-flop raise, I was one of two callers, I hit the open-ended straight on the [qd 9h 7c] flop, SB potted, I raised, he called all-in, there was a [qh] on the turn, and a [3d] on the river, and he missed everything.

Twenty-five minutes. 22 hands. +76BB.

Encore Club $11K NLHE

Lost my first buyin all in pre-flop with [ax qx] v [7x 7x]. Rebought and went out on the last hand before break after I flopped trips from BB in a limped pot then lost to a flush draw who called my all-in. Saved myself the add-on (prize pool in the image isn’t complete, they hadn’t put in all the add-ons yet.

One hour. 78th of 83 entries.

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Encore Club 1/2 NLHE

Tried a couple tricks that went horribly wrong.

Thirty minutes. -80BB

Encore Club $1K NLHE

Very fast busto. No re-buy, no add-on.

Five minutes. 8th of 8 entries.

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Bovada $1K NLHE Turbo Bounty

Got all-in with [qh jh] and a decent-sized stack against aces at two tables and didn’t make it much longer after that.

Ninety minutes. 81 hands. Four bounties. 13th of 194 entries. +188% ROI.

Bovada O8 Bounty

I got to HU in this game with a 2x chip lead, but managed to give away a bunch of chips. Highlight hand was number 62. I was down to 2.7K from the 3K starting stack, limits are 300/600, and I’m in SB with [qd qs as 3h]. A full table, BB’s all-in for the blind, almost everyone’s limping until HJ raises [jd 8d jh ah]. Then everyone but D is calling, until it gets back around to UTG3 ([9d tc 6s 8c]), who 3bets to 900, and that gets called all the way around. The flop’s [ac th qh], I bets and get three calls. [4c] on the turn, I make the big bet and everyone calls again. [5d] on the river, I bet, UTG1 calls with two pair and no low, I scoop the pot with a set and get a bounty for BB.

Three hours. 189 hands. Four bounties. 2nd of 25 entries.

Bovada $200 O8

Another late-reg mistake.

Forty-seven minutes. 20 hands. 20th of 27 entries.

Bovada $5K NLHE Thousandaire Maker

Another shot. I was in need of a double-up with half the chip average and 10BB, I raised to 3BB with [kd kc] and got called by a 16BB stack with [qd td]. The flop was [ks ad jh] and I shoved my set into the Portland Nuts.

One hour and twenty-four minutes. 72 hands. 73rd of 115 entries.

Bovada $5K NLHE Turbo

Got in with 20BB after busting the Thousandaire Maker. [ah qs], meet [qc qh].

Fifteen minutes. 18 hands. 199th of 564 entries.

Bovada $4K NLHE 6-Max

Got [ks js] in on a [kd jc 7s] flop against [ts ac] and ran into [qd] on the turn.

Ten minutes. 8 hands. 43rd of 50 entries. 

Bovada $7K NLHE Turbo

Got into this with 12BB after busting the 6-Max. Tripled my stack in the first 30 hands. Hand 38, with 8BB, I got [tc ts] in BB and call all-in pre-flop against a UTG2 raise and call from CO. UTH2 has [kh 8h], CO has [ac ad], and I hit top set on the flop. Last hand, I shove [ks qc] UTG with 10BB (though about the same number of chips I ended up with 20 minutes earlier) and run into aces again, without the lucky result.

Sixty-eight minutes. 55 hands. 84th of 713 entries. +55% ROI.

Final Table $1K NLHE

Burned through two buy-ins, didn’t add on, and went out  on a bad beat I don’t remember. I just know it was bad.

Seventy minutes. 20th of 26 entries.

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Bovada $200 PLO Turbo

Late-regged in the second level of a turbo and a third of the field was gone already. Looking at the hand I busted on, I cannot figure out what I was doing.

Five minutes. 4 hands. 27th of 43 entries.

Bovada $500 PLO8 Bounty

Called a 900 raise preflop (18% of my stack) with [qs kh ts ks], flopped an open-ended straight on a flop of [tc 4d jd], bet it and got raised for my entire stack. Hit the nuts on the [ac] turn, then lost two ways with the [td] river against [qd as 2h ad].

Fifty-five minutes. 31 hands. 34th of 46 entries.

Final Table $1K NLHE

I got very lucky at the final table. Then very unlucky. We were eight-handed, I had [kc 3c] in the BB and a solid—if a little sticky—lady in middle position made a min-raise that folded around to me. I was short—about 12BB—but called anyway, only to get a [3x 3x 2x] flop. I check-raised all-in, which she called with [ax ax], I managed to avoid an ace on the turn and river, even hitting a king for a full house and doubling up enough to get to the money. By the time we were three-handed, it was me with about 8BB, an even shorter stack, and a “giant” stack with about 20BB. I picked up [9x 9x] UTG, shoved, and the short stack in BB called me with [tx 3x], hits two pair on the flop and tops it off with a full house on the turn. I go out next hand with [4x 8x] against the big stack, catch a four on the flop and lose when he makes a higher pair on the river.

Three hundred and ten minutes. 3rd of 22 entries. +325% ROI.

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Bovada FLO

Got involved on a [4c 3h 5h kc] hand on a [qh 7h jc] flop that looked promising. and continued on a [5s] turn, but the river paired the board and I lost.

Twenty-six minutes. 20 hands. 17th of 19 entries.

America’s Cardroom $200 PLO8

Checked in on ACR to see if I had any funds left there and decisded to play them badly for a while.

Forty-five minutes. 35 hands. 25th of 31 entries.

Aces Full $1K NLHE

I hadn’t been into Aces Full for a while. Their daily noon game allows two live rebuys, but there isn’t an add-on. I don;t usually like rebuys, but I did one after having my jacks lose to a [4d 7d] that made a straight on the river and paying it off. That guy lost his entire stack to the guy on my right just after the first break, so with two tall stacks of 1K ships, he was one of the three callers against the tens I finally had to shove with less than 4BB. Lost to [ax kx], but other wise might have tripled up.

One hundred and thirty minutes. 16th of 19 entries.