The difference between a good handreader and just an average player...

A warning first, do NOT try this at home.

This is a hand I played yesterday. Villian is a regular who I played over 11k hands with and seems like a decent player. He opens to 2.5bb from every position and his opening range here is around 20%. He is pretty aggro postflop on every street (AF >3 on every street), so he barrels a lot probably.

On to the hand (no special gameflow going on)

***** Hand History for Game 5769693638 ***** (Everest)
$400.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Friday, April 23, 12:11:44 ET 2010
Table Bamako2 (Real Money)
Seat 4 is the button
Seat 1: 2cheap ( $80.00 USD )
Seat 2: jatekos ( $364.50 USD ) -> 20/17/4
Seat 3: Mr.Gaston ( $113.10 USD )
Seat 4: BldZwtTrn ( $406.00 USD )
Seat 5: MONAZ ( $410.50 USD )
Seat 6: overedge ( $673.90 USD )
MONAZ posts small blind [$2.00 USD].
overedge posts big blind [$4.00 USD].

Dealt to BldZwtTrn [ Qs Kd ]

-> Pre-flop I could call or 3bet here, but as he folds a lot vs 3bets (70%) and 4bets a lot (so doesnt call much here OOP) I decide to call here.

** Dealing down cards **
2cheap folds
jatekos raises [$10.00 USD]
Mr.Gaston folds
BldZwtTrn calls [$10.00 USD]
MONAZ folds
overedge folds

** Dealing Flop ** [ 7h, 2s, 3d ] -> pot=$26

-> This is a really dry flop on which he cbets probably close to 100% (his cbet% is 71%). Offourse I missed this flop completely but as he barrels a lot and probably always keeps barreling on K/Q turns I decide to call (as I would with a set here) and bluff good turns (4 to 9 and probably an A and call K/Q turns).
So the only turns Im definitely folding are 2,3,T,J cause they narrow my range of good value hands a lot instead of improving them.

jatekos bets [$14.00 USD]
BldZwtTrn calls [$14.00 USD]

** Dealing Turn ** [ 5c ] -> pot= $54

As told on the flop this is a good turn for my range. A4s/55/22/33/77 are all in my range on this turn so I decide to raise here. I should have raised a litte bit smaller though (to $100), so that I would have had one potsize bet left on the river (this probably gives me a little bit more fold equity on the river).

When I raise here, I'm probably shoving any river except a 2 and 3, although I don't think that makes a lot of difference.

FWIW my bluffing range on this turn is very, very small, because there are just not much (bluff) hands in my range here, besides the random-lets-turn K high-into-a-bluff-one-time hands. Hands like 44/76/88/99 I'm calling way more often here then turning them into a (semi) bluff.

jatekos bets [$38.00 USD]
BldZwtTrn raises [$112.00 USD]
jatekos calls [$74.00 USD]

** Dealing River ** [ 5s ] -> pot= $274

Not the best river for me, I'd rather seen a 6 or a 8, but still I pull through with my bluff, cause his hand is complete face up for me as TT-AA and I expected he was good enough to make this fold, but I was wrong.....

jatekos checks
BldZwtTrn bets [$270.00 USD]
jatekos calls [$228.50 USD]
BldZwtTrn wins $41.50 USD
BldZwtTrn shows [Qs, Kd ]
jatekos shows [Qc, Qh ]
jatekos wins $732.00 USD from main pot

Offcourse some will see this as spew, but with a clean image this should just be a very easy fold for him on the turn/river. I'm probably turning up here with a bluff in less then 1 out of 25 times or something....

A hand that looks a lot like mine is this hand below. The only difference is that I believe that the K3s call from rubenrtv is probably a lot better (his hand is good a lot higher % of the time, then the QQ call from villian above....)

That might look strange because and overpair is the nuts, compared to bottom pair, but that's the big difference between a very good handreader and just an average player who only looks at his absolute hand strength, instead of his relative one.

PokerStars Game #43026364990: Hold'em No Limit ($25/$50 USD) - 2010/04/22 15:42:28 CET [2010/04/22 9:42:28 ET]
Table 'Bruwer IV' 6-max Seat #5 is the button
Seat 1: KingBoromir ($5000 in chips)
Seat 2: diBasio ($5100 in chips)
Seat 3: damiii ($5540 in chips)
Seat 4: pistons87 ($5447 in chips)
Seat 5: adtina22 ($5000 in chips)
Seat 6: rubenrtv ($7619 in chips)
rubenrtv: posts small blind $25
KingBoromir: posts big blind $50
*** HOLE CARDS ***
diBasio: folds
damiii: folds
pistons87: folds
adtina22: folds
rubenrtv: raises $125 to $175
KingBoromir: calls $125
*** FLOP *** [ 10s, 3c, 4c ] -> pot= $350
rubenrtv: bets $250
KingBoromir: calls $250
*** TURN *** [ 4s ] -> pot= $850
rubenrtv: bets $625
KingBoromir: raises $1025 to $1650
rubenrtv: calls $1025
*** RIVER *** [ Jh ] -> pot= $4150
rubenrtv: checks
KingBoromir: bets $2925 and is all-in
rubenrtv: calls $2925
*** SHOW DOWN ***
KingBoromir: shows [6d, 5d ] (a pair of Fours)
rubenrtv: shows [Kh , 3h ] (two pair, Fours and Threes)
rubenrtv collected $9997 from pot

I should have known....

....that posting about running good is asking for some bad luck.
After my upswing of 40k hands, I had a period of 40k hands were I lost 20 buy-ins.

I don't know if it sounds familiar, but if I have been running hot for a while, like I did in the beginning of the month, I'm almost scared to play again, knowing that luck will probably turn into bad luck any time soon.
On the other hand, when I have a period of running not so good, I have the tendency to play more then normal just to get out of the downswing as fast as possible.

But when I think rationally, I know that the past has no impact on future hands, so when I have for example 20 buyins of luck (I know it's hard to decifer the exact luck factor) or bad luck over a period of time it doesn't mean that it will happen the other way around in the next period....

Am I the only who thinks like this?

New top10 and running hot

As promised before I will post a new top10 of EVP midstakes (400/600) regulars.
This time I only looked at players I played more then 2500 hands with since march 1st (~ 50 players).
So again, some good players might be missing, but that's just cause they haven't played much vs me. I just like to give some idea of which players are improving or which are not.

10. PperPazzo

This player has the highest VPIP of all regulars (he plays 32/26). I do think he has some leaks (especially preflop), but I also think he adjusts good to the pre-flop style he is playing.

9. lolpancake

See previous time, not much changed, hate the fact that he's always curing and complaining.

8. toaster

He plays a lot of NL200 as well, but I think he's a really decent player. Never understand why he plays NL200 most of the time.

7. -MJP-

Very solid player, has a very solid pre-flop game and never see him do any weird stuff.

6. Jflamm

See last month, not much changed, just can't win against him

5. hotze

Still thinks he's a decent player, but I probably overestimated him a little.

4. burn1emAc

He really improved his game the last months, he's a lot more aggro pre-flop and still very solid postflop.

3. JVVD

See last month.

2. Chappolini

Haven't played a lot with him (3.5k hands), but he always seems very solid and tricky.

1. groengras

If you see this little Taksi drinking men in real life you won't expect he's this good. But he's just a very good and tricky player. His hand reading is very good and he knows how to put players in though spots.

Upswing!!

Recovering

I found my way up after one of my worst downswings so far. Happy to be back at my all time high again so fast.
I always believe it's one of the most difficults things in poker to stay focused (not tilting) and keep playing you're A-game when things are not going you're way.