This is my entry into the RankingHero Malta competition. All week we've been playing a phantom hand of poker - which has been a good bit of fun and pretty stimulating. I've linked to my previous streets below. I even had the exact same hand (give or take a suit!) come up in my own game yesterday - check out the turn link below if you want to see that! Seems like I will have this hand ingrained in my subconscious for sometime to come 

Turn
Skilful - Blog Post - Ranking HeroImagine you’re in Malta playing the 2015 PokerListings Battle of Malta. Lucky you!www.rankinghero.com

Flop
Skilful - Blog Post - Ranking HeroToday the next street has been revealed for the malta competition and here's my entry. I had fun creating it www.rankinghero.com

Preflop
Skilful - Blog Post - Ranking HeroHey RankingHero! This is my entry for the #HandMalta  #BOMpreflop competition. If you like my post can you click like and help me progress to the next round, thanks!! www.rankinghero.com

ANYWAY! Here is the final street. Below is my response for what I would do on the river.

Thanks ALOT if you have liked my earlier posts here.

If you enjoy reading this if you could like it, that would make my weekend! Thanks :)

Here is the hand:

Imagine you’re in Malta playing the 2015 PokerListings Battle of Malta. Lucky you!

You are close to the bubble.
The blinds are 1,000/2,000/200.

Preflop

Everyone folds to the player in middle position. He’s an aggressive Swedish pro, with 136,250 chips, and he raises to 5,000. Two hands earlier, the villain lost 20% of his stack on a bluff on the river.

You’re on the button with K♥K♦ and a stack of 130,500.

You decide to 3-bet 12,000 chips.

The small blind and the big blind both fold.
Villain calls.

The pot is now 28,800 chips.

Flop

The dealer reveals Q♠K♠7♠.

Villain bets 12,000.

The action is back on you. You now have a 118,500 stack.

You raise his bet to 28,000 chips.

Villain decides to call.

Turn

The turn card is 3♠

Villain checks.

The pot is 84,800. You have a 90,500 stack

On villain’s check on the turn, you bet 24,000 chips.
And, once again, he calls.

River

The river is the 2♥.

The pot is now 132,800.

Villain decides to push all his stack in.

He covers you by 6,000 chips.

What do you do?

OK. So this was not what I had in mind when I looked down on those beautiful Kings preflop. I have KK 3bet with just 65bb's and get called. Awesome! But then the

Wheels started to fall off. Anyway we are where we are!

It's decision time. Let's start with the math.

The pot was 84,800 on the Turn and I bet 24,000 and he called. Which means the pot on the river was 132,800 before he shoved.

With his shove the effective pot is now 199,300 and I have 66,500 chips behind so I'm getting 3:1 on the call.

Thanks for setting up that... 3:1

Mr Swedish Pro.

So game theory wise we just have to be good 1 out of 4 times. But we aren't in a game theory vacuum here. Let's explore some other factors.

The only real pure value hand in his range here is the nut flush. The second and third nut flushes are already out there on the board, so we know he doesn't have either of those. What's more we have screamed strength with our line throughout this hand.

The turn is the crucial stage of this hand for the river decision we are now facing. If we had not bet the turn, then we would have more of a decision to make here. But we made a tiny bet on the turn so the Ace of spades is definately within our range. Our range is uncapped on the river.

This would be a pretty sick bluff. The set isn't even a good bluff catcher anymore! It's not even like we have to fold everything we have in our range here. For him to shove without a spade in his hand for his tournament life would be pretty suicidal given how this hand has played out.

So by shoving here it would appear that this tricky PRO has merged his range or has the nuts.

At the start of this post we said he was going to get what was coming to him.

He is going to get what is coming to him for sure... Nothing! No value town to be found here!

I FOLD! Next hand please dealer!

#HandMalta  #BOMriver.

About three years ago I was a member of a training site called Drag the Bar. Drag the bar was a brilliant training site and I only found it because I got to know an MTT pro and great guy called David ‘HeyImDro’ Rowen who I purchased some training from. Turns out David was a pro at DragTheBar and that’s how I was introduced to the site.

About two months after I joined there was a competition to win a mental game session with Jared Tendler the world renowned mental game coach. I would never have been able to access this level of mental game training were it not for the competition but I was lucky enough to win! The training was useful but it’s hard to take a huge amount away that will have a lasting impact on your game in a one hour session. One of the points I did take away though was that I was overconfident and that insight is one that is still having a plus ev effect on my game to this day.

For instance at the time I would play 200nl cash live (with great chunks of the little disposable income I had available to me!) and expect to win because I believed I was better than most players that played live in a tourist hotspot like central London. Jared helped me to realise that my overconfidence was actually blinding me from seeing what was really going on and stimulating me to take risks I shouldn’t have been taking on the table!

I took another thing away from that awesome competition and that’s what this post is about.

Two days ago I decided to go back to this book and really study, absorb and apply the material in it. Every player has different weak spots in their game and mine is without doubt the mental game! When I am playing at my best, or even at my B game I play fine and can profit well at the stakes I play. Sometimes I do something really crazy though like getting annoyed at a player that has sucked out on me, or risking more of my bankroll in a session than I should and the impact of that bad decision can take me back to square one.

As some of you that have read my blog before might know I am in the really fortunate position now of being able to focus on what I want to for the first time in my life, poker! So it’s important I work just as hard off the table as I do on the table to take my game to the next level.

So… I’ve decided to read 18 pages of The Mental Game of Poker a day for the next two weeks. This will mean I will have finished reading the book within two weeks. This will of course just be the start of my work with the book! As Jared says in chapter 1:

"Do not read this book cover to cover and expect to know it all. The process of improvement is more like chopping down a
 tree with an ax rather than cutting it down with a huge chainsaw."

 but it will of course be a great start.

To make sure I am learning as I go and my game is benefitting from what I learn I am taking notes as I go along with points that are meaningful for me. Then at the end of each chapter I am reviewing my notes and figuring out if I should apply any action points as a result of what I’ve just taken on board.

I’ve just finished chapter 1 and completed my first review this morning.

Here are the action points I decided upon:

I’m excited to be getting a real grip on developing my mental game. I have had this book a long time, and I am finally in a good space to start improving my game with it.

In future posts I will write some mental game strategy based on what I am learning and post them.

I’ll also update my blog from time to time to let you guys know how my own work with the book is going!

Until next time, good luck at the tables. Then again, forget that last sentence.

As Jared says in the first chapter of this book,

           "Your strategy is flawed if you believe… Playing your A-game is random."

#blog #mentalgame

My entry to the Malta competition turn play is below :)

Edit: Can you believe this?

I'm even on the button! haha

Little does he know how expert I am on this line thanks to RankingHero

Here is the hand:

Imagine you’re in Malta playing the 2015 PokerListings Battle of Malta. Lucky you!

You are close to the bubble.
The blinds are 1,000/2,000/200.

Preflop

Everyone folds to the player in middle position. He’s an aggressive Swedish pro, with 136,250 chips, and he raises to 5,000. Two hands earlier, the villain lost 20% of his stack on a bluff on the river.

You’re on the button with K♥K♦ and a stack of 130,500.

You decide to 3-bet 12,000 chips.

The small blind and the big blind both fold.
Villain calls.

The pot is now 28,800 chips.

Flop

The dealer reveals Q♠K♠7♠.

Villain bets 12,000.

The action is back on you. You now have a 118,500 stack.

You raise his bet to 28,000 chips.

Villain decides to call.

Turn

The turn card is 3♠

Villain checks.

The pot is 84,800. You have a 90,500 stack.

What do you do?

OK this isn't actually as bad as it might look at first glance this guy is a pro, he's very unlikely to be calling with weak flush draws given how polarised our range is after we 3bet preflop and raised his donk lead on the flop. What more we are shallow which means he's just not getting the implied odds if he hits and he will know this.

The ace high flush is really the only card he's going to be betting for value on the river knowing how strong our range. The rest of the hands he bets on the river (the majority of his range that does bet) is going to be a bluff.

What's more he doesn't know that we are capable of thinking this hand through in the way we have, Given this and his earlier bluff the best play here is to check behind. Sure we run a small risk of the board running out to a 5 card flush but that's slim given the spades already out there and the other suits in the deck.

So with that in mind, and a smart little bit of

Let's check behind here.

We give him the opportunity to bluff using the evidence we've already gleamed from two hands previous on the river. While at the same time not isolating ourselves against hands that beat us. Sure we had a set on the flop, but our hand strength relative to the board has just plummeted. But we are still strong Vs the whole range of hands he could be holding and have a nice little

For the river. If he does go for a half pot or less bluff on the river (and really no reason for him to bet more if he is bluffing) and we call, we are still going to have 20bbs left more than enough for us to try to manouvre ourselves through the bubble and into the later stages of the tournament.

Bring it on Swedish Pro. I check. Lets see a river!

#HandMalta & #BOMturn.

Had a good day so far with poker. Up about 6 buyins in my two sessions today.

and now i'm about to go live on twitch after i've eaten - followed by analysing the next street for RankingHero Malta competition!

Guess you could say Friday has been about poker? :)

Here's my grind setup

Naturally RankingHero is by the side :P

Have a great weekend!

#grindstation #friday