My first session of this challenge, sorry Laurent I’m late.
So, we’ve decided to do this challenge and use our app great features to follow it. Self advertisement never hurts 🙂
My goal is to be able to play at NL20 with a good bankroll management, having more than 50 buy-ins.
After creating my new bankroll, starting with 100€, I opened 6 tables of NL5 on my favorite room, Winamax. I didn’t do any table selection, we’ll see if this is needed when I move up.
I’ve also decided to strictly time my sessions. I’ve set the timer on our app of course, this first session will be a one hour session!
Wait for it, I’m playing my session.
Ok, done. Let’s get into my first review 🙂
I’ve played 622 hands on 6 tables (Short handed, 5-max), NL5. I saved 2 important stats as custom fields on the app: 26% VPiP and 23% PFR. I’ve ended up with +21,21€, nice first session.
Like Laurent, I also track my shape (Top, OK, tired, I was at the top here) and my appreciation of my game (3 levels, A,B,C, I was A). I’ve added to those my focus, a lot could happen during a session, phone call, noise, cats f****** around, etc. so the focus let me ask my self at the end of the session if I was “into” my session or not (I have 3 levels as well: Good, Average and Bad, I was really focus here, hopefully for the first session of the challenge!).
Even focused, I’ve lost my biggest pot, 65BB, just doing the easiest mistake ever, be passive, I call 4 times, pf, flop, turn and river with my 99. We were 3 at the table, I was BB and the SB raise on the BTN limp, I didn’t pay attention to this, it was the very beginning of the session, was still trying to open 6 tables. So I just call the raise of SB and then, on J high flop, I noobishly call 3 times to discover a nice J4o in its hand.
First Rule of this challenge: avoid at any cost this line. Never again.
Another good rule I came up during the session, is about the river. At micro limits, it’s quite obvious to understand that something went wrong and your opponent is showing a great appetite for your chips. He takes the lead, re-raise, doing a big bet, like bet pot or overbet. At first, like the first hand I describe, I didn’t pay enough attention to this. 2nd biggest post I’ve lost, 50BB, was with KK, I called a big bet river, even after taking my time to think. I need to be careful on the big bets river, obviously showing strength.
Stacks:
UTG – Hero (€5,12)
CO – CO (€4,98)
BTN – BTN (€5,17)
SB – SB (€4,66)
BB – BB (€4,35)
Preflop: (€0,07, 5 players) Hero is UTG with K♠K♣
Hero raises to €0,14, 2 folds, SB calls €0,12, 1 fold
Flop: 3♥J♥7♥ (€0,33, 2 players – SB: €4,52, Hero: €4,98)
SB checks, Hero bets €0,25, SB calls €0,25
Turn: 2♣ (€0,83, 2 players – SB: €4,27, Hero: €4,73)
SB checks, Hero bets €0,44, SB calls €0,44
River: 7â™ (€1,71, 2 players – SB: €3,83, Hero: €4,29)
SB bets €1,71, Hero calls €1,71
Total Pot: €5,13
Hero shows K♠K♣ (Two pairs : Kings and 7)
SB shows 6♥T♥ (Flush Jack high)
SB wins €4,80Â
When I see the hand history now, the fold was really easy.
But let’s talk about the hands I’ve won now 🙂
I’ve got lucky (obviously!), I had one AA vs AQ allin pf 100BB, villain 4bet shove my 3bet, easy!
And I won one 50/50 with AKs. This time, I opened UTG (we were 4 at the table), villain 3bet, I 4b and he quickly 5b with a huge bet, half of his remaining stack, 28BB, I had to decide to go 6-bet or fold after my 4bet. I rarely do that so, I ask him all the rest of his stack and he snapped call with QQ, lucky me, I hit an Ace! I don’t think there is a way to fold here.
Nothing else worth mentioning. I did generally value bet my TPTK nicely, I did select carefully the flops to c-bet with air. Oh, I do remember something worth telling: I had the chance to use a move I heard about, the raise-min flop with TPGK when I’m not leading.
Stacks:
UTG – UTG (€5,05)
CO – CO (€5,48)
BTN – BTN (€5,60)
SB – Hero (€6,38)
BB – BB (€2,20)
Preflop: (€0,07, 5 players) Hero is SB with A♦J♦
UTG raises to €0,15, 2 folds, Hero calls €0,13, 1 fold
So, here, I really don’t like 3betting a open UTG with my “good” hand, don’t see any good reason.
Flop: 4â™ A♣4♥ (€0,35, 2 players – Hero: €6,23, UTG: €4,90)
Hero checks, UTG bets €0,23, Hero raises to €0,46, UTG calls €0,23
The flop arrives and here I can use the move, typically a wa/wb situation (way behind or way ahead), doing this min raise will froze the action turn often enough (in micro-limits).
Turn: 8♥ (€1,27, 2 players – Hero: €5,77, UTG: €4,44)
Hero checks, UTG checks
Good.
River: 6♣ (€1,27, 2 players – Hero: €5,77, UTG: €4,44)
Hero checks, UTG checks
I maybe miss some value here, with the move, I can bet/fold river easily, but I was really sure he would have bet something: an easy call for me anyways and not expensive at all.
Total Pot: €1,27
UTG shows A♥T♣ (Two pairs : Aces and 4)
Hero shows A♦J♦ (Two pairs : Aces and 4)
Hero wins €1,19Â
I was ahead 🙂
Let’s end this post with this last note I made to myself, there is clearly a lot of value to make when I detect my opponent is on a draw. They won’t calculate any odds in micro-limits, so it’s where I can bet big: flop and moreover turn. They will do their biggest mistakes there and I will do the most part of my winnings 🙂
See you after the next session! Thanks for reading that much 🙂