Another one of those days

So it was another one of those days that began with me getting tilted to no end by what seemed like an unreasonable amount of beats and ended with an unreasonable amount of running good (though at the time it just seemed like running "normal"). I was shooting for 50+ games today, but, like last night, had to stop registering early so I wouldn't tilt everything away. Ended up with 23 games. Cashed in 3: a 1st, a 9th, and a mincash, adding up to $67.84 profit and 134.1% ROI. Absolutely nothing wrong with those numbers, but that doesn't mean it wasn't frustrating getting to that point.

And here's a graph of all my $2.20 180s thus far including today's:

Still a very nice looking graph, but it's still a very small sample size as well. It was nice to get my heads up record even at 3-3 though after basically running like horse shit HU for the past month.

Don't really have anything else to say, so I'll toss in a couple hands here, specifically the hand that got me to HU, and then the brief 3 hand duration of the HU portion, with my comments below each hand.

Hand 1:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, 2.2 Tournament, 3000/6000 Blinds 600 Ante (3 handed) - Poker-Stars Hand Converter from HandHistoryConverter.com

BB (t32220)

Hero (Button) (t57470)

SB (t180310)

Hero's M: 5.32

Preflop: Hero is Button with A, 8

Hero bets t56870 (All-In), 1 fold, BB calls t25620 (All-In)

Flop: (t68040) 6, A, 10 (2 players, 2 all-in)

Turn: (t68040) J (2 players, 2 all-in)

River: (t68040) 2 (2 players, 2 all-in)

Total pot: t68040

Results:

Hero had A, 8 (one pair, Aces).

BB had Q, Q (one pair, Queens).

Outcome: Hero won t68040

Completely standard shove by me on the button with 10 BBs, and obviously completely standard call by him. I just happened to get lucky, nothing he can do about it.

Hand 2:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, 2.2 Tournament, 3000/6000 Blinds 600 Ante (2 handed) - Poker-Stars Hand Converter from HandHistoryConverter.com

Hero (BB) (t93290)

SB (t176710)

Hero's M: 9.15

Preflop: Hero is BB with A, Q

SB bets t12000, Hero raises to t92690 (All-In), SB calls t80690

Flop: (t186580) J, 4, 3 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Turn: (t186580) 8 (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: (t186580) 4 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: t186580

Results:

SB had K, 5 (one pair, fours).

Hero had A, Q (flush, Queen high).

Outcome: Hero won t186580

Against some players, his minraise could be effective, but I treat it exactly as if he had shoved. He time banked it for a little after I shoved over the top. He probably wanted to fold it, but with it being the first hand of HU, he probably didn't want to look weak or make me think I could just run over him, so he opted to call. For the record, if he had simply shoved in the first place, it's a perfectly fine play with K5s up to about 20 BB effective stacks. I just got lucky enough to have a hand here and have it hold up.

Hand 3:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, 2.2 Tournament, 3000/6000 Blinds 600 Ante (2 handed) - Poker-Stars Hand Converter from HandHistoryConverter.com

Hero (SB) (t186580)

BB (t83420)

Hero's M: 18.29

Preflop: Hero is SB with Q, Q

Hero bets t185980 (All-In), 1 fold

Total pot: t13200

Results:

Hero didn't show Q, Q (nothing).

Outcome: Hero won t13200

In retrospect, it probably would have been better if I had raised here instead of just shoving. By raising, I can get more chips out of him in 2 different ways: he could shove over the top, or he could call and try to "outplay" me postflop. By shoving, I can only get more chips out of him if he calls. Either way, it's obviously never going to be wrong to simply shove here with 12 BB effective stacks.

Hand 4:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, 2.2 Tournament, 3000/6000 Blinds 600 Ante (2 handed) - Poker-Stars Hand Converter from HandHistoryConverter.com

Hero (BB) (t193180)

SB (t76820)

Hero's M: 18.94

Preflop: Hero is BB with A, 3

SB bets t76220 (All-In), Hero calls t70220

Flop: (t153640) 6, 7, 5 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Turn: (t153640) 7 (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: (t153640) Q (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: t153640

Results:

SB had K, 10 (one pair, sevens).

Hero had A, 3 (one pair, sevens).

Outcome: Hero won t153640

I have a suited ace HU, that's golden. I'm pretty much prepared to get it in this hand regardless of what he does. He already showed me he was willing to get AIPF with K5s before. Now that he's the short stack, I've gotta think he's gonna be shoving pretty wide from his SB. I did hesitate for a second before calling though, because A3s is a hand that's easily dominated by so much (better aces and PPs, all of which he's surely shoving here) and rarely a favorite (only a significant favorite against weaker 3s, and roughly between a coinflip and 60-40 with everything else). However, I did not feel like getting into a folding war here, and calling and losing would not be the end of the world. I would still have a little over 100k and we would be roughly even in stacks. So the fact that I could outplay him if that were to happen plus the fact that I'm probably a slight favorite against his range here led me to happily call and take it down.

Mondays Tuesday and Wednesdays are generally a little busy for me, so I probably won't be playing again until Thursday. I hope to give a legitimate attempt at getting in 50 games a day next weekend though to start getting myself ready for November. If I can't do it next weekend, I don't know how I'll be able to in November with Thanksgiving stuff eating up a couple of my playing days.