Anthony Martino
Royal Flush
I "feel" like I'm playing well and getting unlucky in big pots against droolers in the majority of the spots where I've been losing lately, but after two and a half months of getting my teeth kicked in I wanted to reach out to the community who follows my posts and see if there's any feedback.
I can be stubborn and I know I've turned off some followers with my responses in the past, so I'm going to do my best to be accepting of criticisms, as ones perception can be skewed and I want to get the monkey off my back and return to winning.
I had my best month in August, where everything just seemed to go my way in the coin-flip or better spots, and won somewhere around 14K-15K. Then I posted my worst month ever in September and unfortunately the bleeding hasn't stopped. I still have winning sessions, but the losing sessions are far more frequent and/or larger than my wins overall. So right now after 2 and a half months I've gone on a roughly 20K downswing.
It's obviously extremely frustrating, and I stopped playing in the games where guys are trying to play bingo preflop and just put stacks in, because they're not making the larger equity mistakes they will if we're getting stacks in postflop.
But even with that switch, I'm finding what I feel are great spots against bad players who are stacking off, but wiggling out when I've got the equity edge. I had two days in a row where guys put it in with shitty Kings in PLO against my limp-repot with Aces and found their Kings straight away on the flop.
I had a guy yesterday call his stack off on a 23J flop with two hearts when he had something like A256 with just the naked Ace of hearts. He wasn't trying to push people out with the naked ace bluff, he was calling off his stack with bottom pair and a gutshot on a flush draw flop. We went twice (I had the same gutshot plus a flush draw) and I made my flush on both boards but on the first runout he caught the case 6 on the river to boat up with 6's full of 2's when I had a 6 in my hand as well and he was starting with just bottom pair post flop.
Yesterday I had a different guy on a K53 rainbow flop facing my pot sized bet from the blinds and another players call inbetween, call holding JJ75 when I flopped top two pair, no fucking clue why he is making that call, but a Jack just rolls off on the turn.
I did have some spots I felt were coolers against a stronger player recently, specifically:
He straddles preflop, a few callers, he's on the button and raises to 125, one calling station comes along, I call with AT98 double suited. The flop is 249 with two of my suit, the station leads out, I pot because the guy who raised generally has a range of broadway or AAxx or KKxx holdings when he raises, but he winds up repotting. I'm already stack committed and get it in, he goes once. Turn is a 10 which I figure is good, river and offsuit 5. He announces he has a set and turns over QJ99. Just no way in a million years (in my opinion) I can ever put him on the case two 9's there having raised preflop, the 249 board with two of my nutted suit should be a ridiculously favorable flop, at worst I'd expect to have him stack off with AAKQ with the KQ of diamonds there.
Then against the same player I'm in the blinds with KT9x and the flop is KT5 with two spades (I don't have them or block them). I lead out, he calls, one other player calls. I'm obviously ready to give up if a spade or a straight card hits, but instead an offsuit 5 hits the turn, which "should" be favorable and not hit my opponents, so I pot again to protect against the draws and/or get value from them if they want to continue, which essentially commits my stack to the hand at that point. Sure enough he did have AQ9 with the Q9 of spades, but his fucking dangler is a 5, and I don't really feel like I can possibly view the 5 as helping his range on the turn.
Anyway, those are just some recent examples, but I've been posting regularly over the past few months, so if there are hands or anything really that you feel I'm fucking up on, please chime in. I need to plug whatever leaks I may be missing, or at least get some responses that let me know I'm not crazy and I am indeed running like absolute dogshit.
I can be stubborn and I know I've turned off some followers with my responses in the past, so I'm going to do my best to be accepting of criticisms, as ones perception can be skewed and I want to get the monkey off my back and return to winning.
I had my best month in August, where everything just seemed to go my way in the coin-flip or better spots, and won somewhere around 14K-15K. Then I posted my worst month ever in September and unfortunately the bleeding hasn't stopped. I still have winning sessions, but the losing sessions are far more frequent and/or larger than my wins overall. So right now after 2 and a half months I've gone on a roughly 20K downswing.
It's obviously extremely frustrating, and I stopped playing in the games where guys are trying to play bingo preflop and just put stacks in, because they're not making the larger equity mistakes they will if we're getting stacks in postflop.
But even with that switch, I'm finding what I feel are great spots against bad players who are stacking off, but wiggling out when I've got the equity edge. I had two days in a row where guys put it in with shitty Kings in PLO against my limp-repot with Aces and found their Kings straight away on the flop.
I had a guy yesterday call his stack off on a 23J flop with two hearts when he had something like A256 with just the naked Ace of hearts. He wasn't trying to push people out with the naked ace bluff, he was calling off his stack with bottom pair and a gutshot on a flush draw flop. We went twice (I had the same gutshot plus a flush draw) and I made my flush on both boards but on the first runout he caught the case 6 on the river to boat up with 6's full of 2's when I had a 6 in my hand as well and he was starting with just bottom pair post flop.
Yesterday I had a different guy on a K53 rainbow flop facing my pot sized bet from the blinds and another players call inbetween, call holding JJ75 when I flopped top two pair, no fucking clue why he is making that call, but a Jack just rolls off on the turn.
I did have some spots I felt were coolers against a stronger player recently, specifically:
He straddles preflop, a few callers, he's on the button and raises to 125, one calling station comes along, I call with AT98 double suited. The flop is 249 with two of my suit, the station leads out, I pot because the guy who raised generally has a range of broadway or AAxx or KKxx holdings when he raises, but he winds up repotting. I'm already stack committed and get it in, he goes once. Turn is a 10 which I figure is good, river and offsuit 5. He announces he has a set and turns over QJ99. Just no way in a million years (in my opinion) I can ever put him on the case two 9's there having raised preflop, the 249 board with two of my nutted suit should be a ridiculously favorable flop, at worst I'd expect to have him stack off with AAKQ with the KQ of diamonds there.
Then against the same player I'm in the blinds with KT9x and the flop is KT5 with two spades (I don't have them or block them). I lead out, he calls, one other player calls. I'm obviously ready to give up if a spade or a straight card hits, but instead an offsuit 5 hits the turn, which "should" be favorable and not hit my opponents, so I pot again to protect against the draws and/or get value from them if they want to continue, which essentially commits my stack to the hand at that point. Sure enough he did have AQ9 with the Q9 of spades, but his fucking dangler is a 5, and I don't really feel like I can possibly view the 5 as helping his range on the turn.
Anyway, those are just some recent examples, but I've been posting regularly over the past few months, so if there are hands or anything really that you feel I'm fucking up on, please chime in. I need to plug whatever leaks I may be missing, or at least get some responses that let me know I'm not crazy and I am indeed running like absolute dogshit.