« More PLO Strategy Stuff | Main | Rhythm and Stealth »
Swings and Roundabouts
By Chips_Middle | March 3, 2008
Well, pot limit omaha is a swingy game. That’s what I’m told and I don’t have any problem believing it.  February was a very swingy month.
Some of that was undoubtdedly due to variance and some of it was certainly to do with bad play. After the spewfest that was my play in the middle section of the month, I had recovered to somewhere approaching reasonable by the 28th. If 2008 had not been a leap year, I would have ended February having played about 4,300 hands. I would have had a win rate @ 7.5 ptBB / 100 which, after the losing sessions in the middle, would have been OK.
But 2008 is a leap year and February 29th was not good to me. Two hundred and forty four minutes of play and two hundred and thirty hands were all it took to get rid of most of February’s hard fought gains. Poker can be cruel.
Eight hands into the session, I limp with
from under the gun.
The player behind me (who is fairly aggressive but quite good) raises. It is called by the cutoff and then the button raises. This is 10c - 20c and so the button’s raise is to $4.10. The button is an idiot. I call, as does the original raiser.
The flop is 
It gets checked around. The turn is 
 I bet the pot ($13.50). He calls. Right at this point we have a $30 pot and he has $4.50 left, so the betting is essentially over. I have bottom 2 pair, a flush draw and an open ended straight draw. He has ….. KK. I told you he was an idiot. Anyway. All my draws miss on the river and the board pairs giving him top 2. We got the money in with me as an 80% - 20% favourite.
I won a $13.50 pot in there somewhere and then threw away a buyin trying to push an over aggressive player, who I was certain was bluffing, off a paired flop. 3 barrells and a full buyin later, I finally figured out that he wasn’t going to lay down. He had flopped the top full house. Doh!
I lost $20 in 2 separate pots (within 4 hands of each other) making river calls to big bets against a guy that bluffs way too much. Wasn’t bluffing either of these times though, - another buyin.
Well. I’m tilting a bit at this point and I’m not getting fantastic cards or hitting flops but I kind of grind it out. Some while later, I have $28 in my stack and get AAK8 with the K8 suited in diamonds. I limp from middle position. The button (big stack) raises. Under the gun calls, as do I.Â
The flop is 
At last, something goes my way. I check to allow the pre flop raiser to hang himself. He bets pot $3.60 and I raise to $14.40. He re-raises. Hmmm. This is interesting. Top set and the nut flush draw and I’m getting re-re-raised, that sounds profitable. I call off the rest of my chips as a 90% favourite. He has the Queen high flush draw and a gutshot. I think only a Jack can save him. The turn is …… You guessed it …. a Jack. And even after that I still had a 35% chance of winning on the river. Which I didn’t.
OK. So reviewing my session up to this point I had had some bad luck and some borderline play and was tilting a little but held it together, waited for my chance and then got it in as a 90% favourite. That $28 would have brought me back to somewhere around evens as far as I recall.
Looking through the session in poker tracker, I follow this pot with a lot of hands with small red numbers where I see the flop and have nothing and fold. Then several rounds with no hands except for posting the blinds. I’m not getting cards but at least I am smart enough to stay out of the way of marginal crap while I’m steaming.
After a long stretch of nothing special, I lose 3 fairly nondescript hands that just don’t go my way. They add up to another buyin. I ran into some muppet who slowplayed top set all the way to the river and then flopped trips with a lower kicker and lost half a buyin (as usual).Â
February 29th. One session. Minus $104.40.
The two big pots that I was 80% and 90% to win add up to roughly -$50. Had they gone my way, the day is breakeven. Had they not happened, the day is -$50, although you would have to factor in tilt etc. and say that without variance, my expectation in this session is probably around evens. Pot limit omaha can be a swingy game.
So the month ends. The month ends and the bankroll is now €628.71 (app. $942). So I’m up around $60 on the month. It’s not going to set any records but it’s better than losing.
I made February 29th’s losses back on March 1st, but that’s another story.
Topics: Journal |
