Weekend Review / My Setup (new mouse!) / Strat HH

I played what has to be the most hands I've ever played over a weekend over the past 3 days, 20,500. 10.5k of these were on Saturday, which I'm certain is the most I've ever played in one day. The huge volume is partially a result of being comfortable 18 tabling now thanks to my new mouse (more on this below) and AHK scripts. As is typical for me, I also play lots when I run bad, which was the case this weekend. I was absolutely abysmal in heater versus cooler spots especially, but managed to finish the weekend up $630 in winnings and $290 rakeback for $930 total profit.

Like I mentioned above, I picked up a Logitech G9 Laser Gaming Mouse as for my sessions to be as efficient as possible, I require extra mouse buttons to which AHK scripts can be bound. Currently I have fold and call bound to the side buttons, with the mouse wheel moving the bet size slider 1 BB at a time. A mouse wheel click does a full PSB postflop, or 4BB + 1 per limper preflop (my standard non-steal position raise), while right clicking does pot preflop (3BB if unraised, my standard CO/BU open size) while doing 0.75 pot on the flop, and 0.66 on the turn and the river.

I also have configured StarsAutoRebuy, so I no longer have the hassle of needing to manually top off my stack. With all this new automation, I was able to instantly go from being strained playing 15-16 tables to being completely comfortable with 18. I can definitely see myself being able to play 24 with a second 28" monitor, which is exciting.

Since I've talked about it a lot, I figure I'll show a couple pictures of my new setup. The first is of my monitors. The left is obviously the 28", while the right is 22". The second picture is of my new mouse. The black and silver case in the picture contains a weighting set, as the mouse has a compartment to which weights can be added so that your mouse is just the right weight.

Here's the setup:



Finally, since there hasn't been a whole lot of strategy on the blog lately, I'll toss out a bone. Today I'm going to talk about turning medium strengths hands into bluffs. If you're a decent player you should immediately react to the preceding sentence, as it is normally to optimal to bluff with our air while seeking a cheap showdown with our medium strength hands. Turning a hand with showdown value into a bluff is rarely good, and not a necessary skill to succeed at micro/small stakes NLH. However, here's an example of a spot where I think doing so is best, because due to a mistake I make on the turn, the villain's range seems to be quite polarized and thus our medium strength hand may as well be air.

Villain in this hand is a 9/4 nit over 100 hands.

Poker Stars, $0.50/$1 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 9 Players
MP1: $16.15 (16.2 bb)
MP2: $16.50 (16.5 bb)
Hero (MP3): $104.85 (104.9 bb)
CO: $98.15 (98.2 bb)
BTN: $103 (103 bb)
SB: $19 (19 bb)
BB: $100 (100 bb)
UTG: $119.40 (119.4 bb)
UTG+1: $105.95 (106 bb)

Pre-Flop: Hero is MP3 with
UTG folds, UTG+1 raises to $4, 2 folds, Hero calls $4, 4 folds

Nit villain raises from UTG+1. Our sample size on his stats is low, so we can't put too much weight into his 4% PFR as he could just have been card dead. However, he's obviously not a maniac or even LAG, so his range here is probably quite tight. I don't like 3-betting QQ in general unless the villain's calling range is wide enough to include smaller pairs and AQ, or there is a ton of dead money to pick up with a squeeze. Since this is almost surely not he case here, we simply call behind.

Flop: ($9.50) (2 players)
UTG+1 bets $6, Hero calls $6

He bets, we call. Even if he's not raising AQ UTG+1, he surely shows up with JJ/TT here sometimes at the very least. At this point, our hand looks like a king or a flush draw. It could perhaps be a set, but due to the two-tone nature of the board we would likely be raising a set here.

Turn: ($21.50) (2 players)
UTG+1 checks, Hero bets $12, UTG+1 calls $12

My bet here is a clear mistake. I don't think I'm getting value from any worse or folding out any better (at least not without a big river bet to truly rep the made flush). After his call the villain's range is heavily polarized towards AK and AA. I doubt he has Ac or Kc as he would probably be raising if that were the case. KK would also surely be raising at this point.

River: ($45.50) (2 players)
UTG+1 checks, Hero bets $30, UTG+1 folds

Luckily for me, a four flush hits the board. Because I made the mistake of betting the turn, our villain's range has been narrowed significantly. We are almost always behind this range, so our hand has little to no showdown value and is practically air. Thus, this is surely a great time for us to fire a healthy bet when checked to, as the hands in our villain's range have a very hard time calling. It is also helpful to note that our villain rarely has the Ac in his hand here, as he would likely lead out if that was the case.

Results: $45.50 pot ($2.20 rake)
Hero mucked (a pair of Queens) and won $43.30 ($21.30 net)

Predictably, our villain folds what is very likely the best hand. It is possible he had JJ or TT here, but quite unprobable based on the betting.