Weird Start

Well yesterday was the start to my challenge, and what a weird start it was.... it was a pretty down, up, down kind of session. I really think that I played far too long in the session, and really need to concentrate on keeping my session lengths down to an hour or so if I'm playing Rush. I think I did a decently long hour rush session, and after the first hour or so things just started to go downhill. I did make up quite a bit with a quick mid-evening session that saw me pull back and pretty well have a 1.5 BI down day, which I'm OK with. I made some bad calls in spots, and one really bad mis-click that cost me around 60bb. I get re-raised after a squeeze and when I try to click fold, I somehow click call instead, which is just awful... I'm pretty well never flat calling a 4 bet, its either shove or fold at that point (unless we're super deep), and I had something like 7h 8h.

Link to Graph

I only really had 2 suckouts over both of the sessions. The first I raise UTG+1 with QQ, get 3 bet by the cutoff, I 4 bet for about 3/4 of his stack, he shoves and I'm almost forced to call. Thankfully he wasn't deeper, but he showed up with KK. The board 5 flushes spades to chop it up, phew. 

The only other major suckout I had was a hand I played from mid position with Ac8c. One limper early, I raise to $0.45 (big stakes, I know), limper calls. Flop AsAh5c. At this point I can really only think of 2 hands that limp call that beat me, 55 and A5. Other than that, most other hands would warrant either raising up front or 3 betting behind. If he had open raised, I would have been alot more worried about being beat, and may have folded pre-flop given my position, but in this case he leads out pot into me, I just over min raise, he shoves, I fist pump call off. Of course he shows up with 55. I peel an 8 on the turn and lock it up. 

Another hand saw me go from a nice favourite to a actually losing money on the hand. UTG opens to 3x, flat from mid, and I flat in the BB with As5s. UTG is short (about 60bb I think?), mid player covers me about 140bb deep. Flop comes Kc5c5h. Bingo! UTG leads, mid player flats, I pop, UTG shoves for a little over a min raise, and mid flats again. Of course I shove behind and get called. UTG shows up with AhKh, mid player calls with 8c9c. Where do I find these players, seriously? I get it in against 2 other players as a 60% favourite, and a king falls on the river to counterfeit my FH. I thankfully end up taking a decent side pot to at least somewhat salvage the hand.

I think the most interesting hand I had all night (I can't seem to pinpoint it on the graph as I don't remember the final pot size) was a 3 way all in on the flop. It played a bit scary but I don't know if I could have found a fold in this situation. UTG raises to 3.5x, I flat from mid with JhJc. Player behind me makes it $1.40 to go, UTG flats and I flat behind, which is probably the most questionable portion of the hand. I feel that the squeeze can be a pretty wide range here at 0.05/0.10, and the UTG flat call made me feel I was ahead of him. I figured he'd be playing 66-1010, A10+ there. Still not sure about the player behind me, but I figured I'd see what happens on the flop and don't want to build a crazy pot right now, as if I get 5 bet I have to fold.

The flop comes out 8-9-10 hearts. Wow.... I'm still not positive I'm ahead, but feel pretty comfortable playing this hand for a large pot at this point. UTG checks, I check behind and the remaining player bets about 3/4 pot. UTG player then shoves! Huh? What the hell could he possibly play in this way?? I can't possibly think of anything he would shove with. Would he call a raise with Ah7h or lower? Could he have Ah-Kh or Qh? A set of 8's or 9's? Jx-Qh? 

I think the only hands I'm in REALLY bad shape against are JxQh, or AKh AQh, at which point I'm drawing to runner runner full house, or one of my straight flush outs (assuming he doesn't have the Qh). Either way, I figure based on the action so far, I've quite possibly got the better hand right now, and have outs to a better hand if I find I'm behind. I debate and shove, expeting the other player to just fold. Of course, he calls, which really shocked me and made me worry I was up against AKh, or atleast Ah10x. 

But alas, UTG turns over the other 2 jacks, so I'm freerolling against him. The player behind rolls over 10c8c. Huh? In my opinion its a horrible call, what is he really ahead of there that won't have a huge amount of outs? Sorry, if I flop top and bottom, c-bet it and get check raised all in with another player calling, I can't continue with it. Its just too scary a board to get it in with 2 pair, but meh, he decided to do it anyways. I bink the Kh on the turn to scoop a nice pot.

I think that was one of the few times all day I actually hit a draw.... I don't know if I've ever had that many draws miss, which sucks when I'm playing them aggressively in position. I had one other hand where I got it in with an OESFD with 2 over cards to the board (10-J on a 9c8c3s  board) and the guy shows up with pocket 5s. I don't know how I miss the world on that board, and he takes a pretty big pot from me. I'm still happy with getting it in as a 72% favourite.

That leads me to one other thing, which I think are possibly the two worst things that can happen playing Rush. The first is having a guy call pot bets on the flop and turn with a flush draw, missing his flush draw but hitting his over card on the river. Talk about frustrating, good god. I think that happened to me around 4 times yesterday, and I hope that doesn't keep up. I was pretty sure each time after the flop that they were on the flush draw (except once I really put a guy on a set with how he played it), and each time they would hit an over card to my pair on the river to scoop it. 

The second most frustrating thing is waking up with aces or kings in the BB and having it fold around. Seriously??? I get people raising any two on the button, and I get it folded to me when I finally wake up with a hand? Ugh. I think I saw aces once and kings twice in my BB.... twice folded to me, and one other time I managed to take a pretty decent pot off the SB after I floped a set vs his K10. 

Other than that, I had one or two set over sets situations where I happened to be on the good end, and I think only one over pair vs set that I was on the losing end of. I haven't been able to get a set vs an overpair in a while, so hopefully the next session I can cooler a couple of people to boost me back up.