Refined Goals Through January & A 6 Max PT Review

With these two infections ravaging my leg and body and the absolute insidious pain I have been going through because of it, I am not really able to play poker as much as I want to.  Hell of late I have hardly been able to play at all.  Yesterday was a prime example.  I tried to play a session but the pain was so bad I just couldn't concentrate.  Played 496 hands for a ($4.78) loss yesterday.  I can't blame the lack of concentration for the loss, however, as the majority of it came when I flopped a set of tens, Villain had AA, we were all-in on the flop and he went runner runner for a flush.

Tonight I was feeling pretty good, and I am wondering if something I decided to do is helping me cope a bit better.  My readers have seen the pics I have posted of the leg and add to that I have neropathy in that leg.  The signals from the brain to the leg get confused because of the circulation problems and the nerve endings flare.  It feels like someone is setting fire to my leg constantly never stopping.  When I come home from work I take my socks and shoes off in an attempt to rest my leg, but then I got to thinking.  When you sprain your ankle and the doctor wraps it the wrap is fairly tight

and those stockings they sell to help people with blood clots are tight to constrict the leg so I thought what if I keep my socks on maybe my socks when I take them off are opening the nerve endings more and maybe I need to keep that leg constricted as much as possible.  Kind of like the same way when you hurt and you squeeze what hurts it relieves the pain somewhat.  I did that tonight and had a pretty good night, enough to get a full session in.  The neropathy pain is still twinging but nothing like it has been.

 

Because of the medical situation that has happened and thus the resulting less play any previous December goals need to be modified.  So I am going to put them forth for the remainder of December and all of January combined.

 

Basically pretty simple.

 

50,000 hands at 6 max, 40,000 hands played in January.

 

Bankroll hitting $400 by January 31st

 

Put in $100 withdraw as soon as bankroll hits $400

 

6bb/100 at 6 max

 

$120 in earnings at $4NL 6 max on January 31st.

 

A profit, any profit in tournaments

So for the month of December thus far I have played 4762 hands at full ring for earnings of $33.53.  The session tonight went 912 hands for a tiny profit of 53 cents so after 5197 hands at $4NL 6 max I am down just over 2 buy-ins, ($8.17) to be exact.  $25.95 in tournaments so far.

The losses I am suffering at 6max are not unexpected as I figure it's going to take me awhile to figure out exactly what I should be doing and in what positions.  Also am I playing too tight?  Am I raising the right hands in the correct positions?  Are there hands I should be raising with but am folding?  I only played 900 hands tonight because the session was a yo-yo and I decided to call it a night up slightly and also to see if I could answer the above questions by checking my Poker Tracker, but with only 5000 hands my sample size is probably too small, but I might be able to spot some sort of emerging pattern.

In 6max when there are 6 players at a table there is one early position that being UTG, one middle position, UTG+1 and 2 late positions, the cutoff and button.  With 5 players there is just one of each position.  When there are 4 players at a table I sit out then leave and grab a new table, my personal preference.  So the first thing I did was check things out when there are 6 players at the table.

I did a little searching around the Internet and forums and found a couple of charts on playable hands for 6 max.  Many of them are just too loose for my personal comfort level, but they do show me areas where I can open up just a bit.  Currently my numbers for 6 max are


The Recommendations:

UTG: 22+,A2s+AJo+,KQ,QJs,JTs

AA-77,AKs,AK,AQs,AQ,AJs,AJ,ATs,AT,A9s,A8s,
KQs,KQ,KJs,KTs,QJs,


All of the following are NOT in the blinds.

Raise First In Did Not Face A 3 Bet:

EP:
6 players:
$1.97 profit in 55 instances.

Been raising with pairs AA-77, but I might want to open that up to include any pocket pair.  Been raising KQs, KJs, and KTs, but not the offsuit version much, but the thing is the few times I have done so with the offsuit version of those 3 hands KQ and KJ are showing profits, but then again the sample size is very small, just a couple or three times, but it might indicate a possible pattern.


EP:
5 players:
$9.13 profit in 30 instances.

Huge difference in earnings between the two, but very similar actions with basically the same hands.  I believe I may open my range just a bit UTG which should prove successful.  Adding KQo, KJo, QJs, and QTs should turn out to be +EV, but I do not feel comfortable with opening up with pairs below 77.


MP:
6 players:
$3.36 profit in 52 instances.

MP:
5 players:
($3.09) profit in 28 instances.

Sample size too small to determine much, but I would not change much except like in EP I plan on opening up a little more


LP:
6 players
$8.52 profit in 88 instances

LP:
5 players
$1.64 profit in 42 instances

Late position is the one area of 6 max I will not make any changes as I am quite comfortable with my hand selection.  So raising first in and not facing a 3 bet is not an issue


Calling Raises but not facing a 3 bet:   +$8.84

Set mining does indeed work in 6 max and one of the things I have noticed overall is that those sets are far more likely to get paid because of the increased aggression both preflop and postflop by not just me, but my opponents.  I need to back off calling raises with suited Broadway cards as even in the limited sample this seems to be -EV

So far the things I have checked show about $30 in profits yet I am down 2 buy-ins so there has to be an area where I am being affected big time.  I continued the search.

($3.30) when i fold to a 3 bet preflop.  Obviously this has to be a negative number as I am folding and ($3.30) in these situations is not bad at all.


Call 3 bet preflop:  ($12.68)

Ouch!!!!!  Ok where am I going wrong?  ($6.46) lost calling those 3 bets with Broadway cards suited and unsuited not counting AK and AQ.  This is what I meant about having to learn what is and is not profitable in 6 max.  They are obvious folds in full ring, but with 6 max and the looser aggressive raising I need to learn what should be and what should not be done.  I just found one.  Another ($4) was lost when my AKs lost to AQ so that's just poker.  Another ($4) lost with a 3 bet call with AJs where I was up against AA.  Even for 6 max I knew making the call that particular hand was debatable at best and I really got raked because of that poor decision.  AQ?  Jury is still out.


I 3 bet preflop not in blinds:  $5.94

Have lost ($5.91) trying this with JJ. 


Raising Behind Limpers no 3 bet involved for or against:  $7.25 profit


I have a funny feeling the blinds are not going to be pretty.  I checked those next.


SB complete, no raise:  $5.88 no problem there

SB Raise but no 3 bet involved:  $1.93  Small profit, but acceptable

SB I 3 bet:  ($5.37)  The major problem with even doing this is I am out of position the rest of the hand.  A couple of somewhat questionable tries accounts for ($3.58) of those losses.

SB call 3 bet:  $0.42



BB checked my option: ($22.97)   Just checking the big blind you expect major losses here.  No surprise.

BB Raise but no 3 bet involved: $2.11  Small profit, but acceptable.  I am very particular what I do this with in the big blind but this may be an area where I need to open up a bit more.  I have raised in the small blind 51 times behind limpers yet in the big blind only 7 times.  There should not be that much of a discrepancy in my opinion.

BB I 3 bet:  $3.18 in profit.  I appear much more selective 3 betting the big blind than I do the small blind and while the profit shown is not huge it is nonetheless profit and a total difference of over $8.00 between the two.

BB call 3 bet:  ($1.79)  an absolute idiotic call with a 57s accounts for $1.28 of those losses.  Flush, what the hell were you thinking???  lol
.

 All this checking still shows over $14 in profits.  I was missing something, somewhere.  Then I found it.  Calling an all-in on the river showed ($16.42) in losses, but here's the kicker.  I have done this only 4 times.  Once I had AK vs Villains AQ, flopped top pair with a king and actually lost the hand, the second instance I flopped trip kings on a board of 5kk but Villain had 55.  The third instance I hut the 2nd nut flush on the turn, but Villain was sitting with the turned nut flush and the 4th instance was on the flop I had an overpair and a gutshot, hit the straight on the river, but Villain hit the flush.  I mean really???  Talk about bad poker luck but each of these cases I could make an argument that calling was totally correct results not withstanding.  Am down ($4.92) calling all-ins preflop, on the flop and on the turn.  ($6.06) of those losses coming calling an all-in preflop with AKo, AKs, and QQ, another ($5.26) lost calling all-ins on the flop by 2 separate Villains in 2 separate hands and in each case the Villains both hit runner, runner flush on me.  There was however ($6.64) in losses calling all-ins on the turn that were completely avoidable and simply bad play by me.  Showing a small, but respectable profit when I am doing the shoving as opposed to calling the shoves.

Turns out I am up a full buy-in at a 4 handed table so from now one I will wait til it's 3 handed before leaving.  All in all I am satisfied with my play.  There can be no argument that I have had a certain amount of bad luck thrust my way, but once again sample size comes into play.  Many of these things will iron themselves out after 50,000 or 100,000 hands, but I have a grasp on some things and where I can make slight changes. The following is my own hand chart.  I don't mind posting it because none of the regulars that I play with on Hero read this blog and even if they did, it would be almost impossible to pin me down on any one hand.  By the way these hands are raised.  I do not limp outside the blinds 99% of the time.


EP:

AA-TT
AKs, AQs, AJs, ATs
AKo, AQo, AJo, ATo
KQs, KJs, KTs
KQo, KJo
QJs, QTs


MP:

Add
99-77
A9s-A6s
A9o, A8o
K9s, K8s
Q9s, Q8s
QJo, QTo
JTs


LP: 

Add
66-22
A5s-A2s
A7o-A2o
K7s-K2s
Q7s
JTs-J8s, T9s, 98s

 Any comments or suggestions are always welcome.

Well time to wrap it up.  Work 6-2 tomorrow, but then have the next 3 days off.  Going to be resting this leg 90% of that time and hopefully feeling good enough to get some hands in.

Play well.