Survey is here: https://forms.gle/u3nnPHaFM8cu7mmg6
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again, nice job!
Tonight’s Rebuy Friday game was amazing.
Five were seated at the table, and I joined a bit late, but I see in the hand history that I won the very first pot, on A3o, when the entire table folded to my empty chair, lol, but once I came in I started out very hot, playing a very wide range that kept flopping into some decent hands: two pair, trips once, a straight or two, a flush at one point, and a few times when I was able to bet down the pot on bottom or second pair after the table had made clear no one else had anything.
My first three hands that I entered, I took for a small pot of between 180-390 chips. The second hand, I’m playing 77, flop a set, and try to slow play it, but then the board ends up with 3 clubs on the Turn and I decide I better shut it down and take the hand on a pot-sized bet. A bit annoyed at that, as I was hoping to build to a much larger pot in this hand, but still much better than losing it.
After that, I had a lot of lucky wins on very marginal holdings, like this hand, J3 flopping a pair of 33s, and it ends up being good enough to win the hand, thanks to no action coming from anyone to bet me off the hand.
I went on a little run after that, winning 6 of the next 10 hands.
- K6o, flop 2nd pair, win the pot with a bet from position. 120 chips.
- 72s, flop bottom pair, and it’s good enough to win on a value bet at the river. 180 chips.
- 85o, river a pair of 5s, and again a value bet folds the table. 180 chips.
- A9o, flop a pair of 9s for bottom pair, and win a showdown vs. K9s. << This hand would foreshadow the final hand of the tournament, as it turns out. 560 chips.
- JTs, flop zilch, turn top pair and close the hand with a 2/3 pot bet.
- Q3o, flop bottom pair, make a hero call on the Turn and end up winning the hand with my 3s and a half-pot bet on the River. 240 chips.
Another 3 or 4 orbits later, I go on another mini-tear, winning 8 of the next 20 pots, and chopping one, raising my stack by about 2100 chips over the course of the run.
- Pocket TT, semi-bluff the pot down with a King over me on the flop. 700 chips.
- 23s, flopping bottom two pair. 600 chips.
- KTo, chop with KTs on a bright red board with 4 hearts, neither of us held a heart. 750 chips on the chop, most of which were mine to begin with; I think the blinds we split here was about 75 chips apiece here.
- K2s, pairing the Deuce on the turn and betting into it against no action, getting a call from 4 Diamonds who missed the board, and I take the hand. 500 chips.
- Q7s flopping a flush draw that I bet and close the hand on the flop. 300 chips.
- A3o, flopping bottom pair, taking the flop with a half-pot bet. 300 chips.
- 35s, limping from the BB, flopping a straight on a 574 board, getting action, taking a big pot on the river, but no call on my value bet. 1600 chips.
- I missed a chance on J8 earlier, folding it to a large raise after limping, then saw the board land for two pair for me, which would have been good on that hand. The next time I play J8o, I get to see a flop, and make top pair, and bet it down for a paltry 200 chips.
- KJo, flop top pair and get action on the flop, end up winning the hand JJ66K, taking a big chunk away from JanCee’s A9s, she had flopped 4 to a flush and called all the way down as no 3rd club landed. 8400 chips.
At this point, I’m way ahead of the rest of the table, and I am able to just cruise. I make a flush a few hands later, on T9s, and take another 4000 chips with it, taking GrandyB for a 1000 chip value bet on the river, he had made AAQQK with his hand.
The hand after that, I take 1400 chips with K4s, when I make trip 4s on a solid hearts flop.
I tighten up just a bit around this point, figuring I’ve got such a nice stack advantage, all I really need to do here is hold it and don’t let anyone get back into the game, and soon they’ll start knocking each other out. But I continue to play when I get cards, it’s not hard to play them when you have such a stack advantage.
- Q7s, raise, make a K-9 straight on the Turn, but get no further action at that point, I take down 1350 chips.
- KQs, raise 3BB, table folds preflop.
- A9o, raise 2BB from the Button, flop top pair, 9s, and close the hand with a 1/2 pot bet on the flop. 2000 chips.
At this point I now have about 17000 chips, and the rest of the table is sitting on 875, 2655, and 4125. This is MY table.
I win 4 of the next 10 pots:
Q3o, in the BB, flop comes up solid spades, AQ7, I min-bet and take the hand.
Q9s, raise 2BB from the SB, take the pot no contest.
AA, I try just limping to conceal my hand strength, and get one call on the flop to a min-bet, but when I step it up to a half-pot bet on the Turn I don’t get anything more. 2400 chips.
This is my last good hand for a while.
I have GrandyB on the ropes, he’s down to his last 1255 chips. I’m dealt AJo, which has lately been the bane of my existance. I raise it 2BB, GrandyB calls, flop comes KQK, GrandyB shoves the rest of his stack at it, I call on the strength of my draw to Broadway, but also the pot odds and relative stacks basically demand that I pay him off here if he has something, but he flips up 92s, and has 3 clubs. Turn is the 3c, and it’s looking dicey, and then he rivers a 9 to suck out and double up to 2910 chips.
Dang it.
But it’s fine, I still have over 16k chips and more than the rest of the table combined, so no worries, right?
I pick up another hand, on 42s, flopping deuces, min-betting the pot down. It’s just not fair when you have this many chips, you can get away with making plays like this, especially at a short-handed table, where it’s possible to play a very wide range, and call any time you hit the flop even a little. 1200 chips.
ATo, I pick up another pot, this time I raise 2BB and the table folds to me again.
My cards go ice cold and then it’s GrandyB’s turn to go on a tear, winning 8 of the next ten hands, and suddenly he’s a legitimate threat at the table.
A7s, flopping nothing. 1200 chips.
JTo, rivering a Jack to salvage a 1800 chip pot.
J4, flopping a pair of 4s, 1800 chips.
JanCee’s final hand, Grandy takes it with high card Ace, AQo over 73o. 550 chips.
I get a pair of 2s, raise from the SB and get called. Flop is J88, I bet half-pot, Grandy shoves, I lay down, he shows AJ. 3600 chips. @#%#
Q9 turning a pair of Queens with an inside straight draw, it’s good enough to end the hand on the Turn. 1800 chips.
JT flopping Broadway. 2400 chips.
T5, turning a pair of 5s, and I can’t call. 1800 chips.
All this time I’m getting dealt nothing I can play, and just bleed chips every time I’m in the blinds. I’m down to under 13000, and he’s come up to just under 8000. Wildpokerdude is sitting in the basement with a little over 2100 chips.
I pick up a few smallish pots, 900, 1200, Grandy hits a nut flush for 2350 chips to KO wildpokerdude’s pocket 99s, and we’re heads up. He has 10310 chips to my 13690, and we’re heads up, blinds are 1000/2000, and it’s a whole new game all of a sudden.
I win one again for 1500 chips, then GrandyB takes another big pot for 6000 chips, and follows it up with a 2000 chip win. Grandy just comes right back and takes the next hand for 2000, and then the one after that for 6000 chips.
I continue to miss flops and can’t pick up anything big. I’m out on my feet, and down to my last 4000 chips, when I’m dealt 22. I raise, Grandy calls. I flop a set of 222s, and Grandy hits top pair, Queens, which sets up an ideal situation for me as I shove, and he calls. I river quads and double back up to 9380 chips just as the hour comes to a close and we go into break.
Coming out of the break, I hit higher kicker a pair of 3s to the board, and win the first hand for another 3000, JT over T9, and we’re back to approximately even, 13120 chips to 10880.
We battle back and forth, I get another 9000 chips on pocket 7s, I raised max preflop and then shoved on the flop, it wasn’t ideal but it won the hand. I took another hand on J2s, bluffing at the river to take down another 3000 chips. Then I get dealt AA, and I’m hoping this will be the hand. I limp it, then Grandy bets at the flop, I raise, he thinks about it until the timer expires, and he lets it go. @#%@#^. I wonder if I should have played more passive here and just called after a long think, and then raise the Turn, but I didn’t want to let him see that card too cheap, either, and risk him hitting two pair or something.
We spend the next 4 hands trading 3000 chips back and forth, he takes 2, I take 2, then he takes 6000 with High Card Ace, I win the next hand for 3000, then the next 5 hands go to him: 3000, 4000, 1000, 8000 on a pair of lousy 2s, 1000. I win my last hand of the game for 4000 chips, and then I go all-in on K7, hit trip 7s, but Grandy wins it with A7.
That last sequence was brutal, I couldn’t connect with anything. The only way I could have possibly won would have been through successful bluffing, and while I can do that to Grandy sometimes, he’s been catching on to me lately, and it’s been getting tougher.
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You’re so good at writing these pug!
It was a very strange game indeed…lady luck was on your side and you played that luck well.
After a while I just got so frustrated I finally decided I wanted to give up and go do something else so I shoved thinking I’ll donate my last few chips to the pot and got lucky.
From that point on it seemed lady luck walked away from the pug and came over and sat on my lap.
2 Likes
whats the chances I join up this league?
im involved in another league baddonks league and itsmy fave part of replay and I need another league challenge so here I am asking for that new challenge?
what yer think?
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Consider it done…you should be added by tomorrow’s game…welcome!
Good morning, just got the message letting me know you’ve been added as a member of Poker Disclosure…welcome!
Tonight’s Monday Disclosure game was a lonely heads-up table of just me and ole @GrandyB.
I had the upper hand most of the way, the cards just fell my way more often than not, and heads-up there’s not a whole lot you can do about it except make good decisions and play solid poker.
I did not play solid poker. Or did I? I let my range be literally any two cards tonight, and won a decent number of hands where the flop came in low, paired something I had, and it held up. Grandy’s not normally one to take a stab at a pot bluffing from two overcards, but I caught him that way once or twice, and then other times I had better cards and hit with them. He won a few hands though.
When we started out, I was just finishing up another SNG, heads up with a large stack advantage, and eventually put my opponent away a short time after the hour break. But during that time I was hectically switching between windows, and it almost screwed me up on the other table, but fortunately I held on and beat my opponent, it was a good one, as I chase a nut flush draw against an inferior flush draw, neither of us fill, but I have a better kicker, and the river card pairs my 5 to seal it… a real nail-biter.
Back to Disclosure, on the opening hand, I have AQ, the flop comes down QKJ, turn is a T to give me a nut straight. Grandy holds a weaker Ace, A4s, so we go all-in and chop it. Oh well. This was going to be a wide-open, wild game, I could tell.
Nah, actually we played fairly conservatively, lots of checking, mostly min-betting, and only a little raising, although I did most of that, and mostly preflop. But I think that’s what gave me the edge, and I worked up about a 1000 chip advantage after about 10-15 minutes. But against Grandy, that can change quickly, because he can sneak in a strong hand on you when you don’t see it coming.
A bit later we both chopped again on another big pot, A9 vs. A9, flopping the pair for the Ace on the flop, neither of us backing down. We get over 1000 chips in the middle for the showdown, and then split it right down the middle. That was Grandy’s best chance of coming back to even against me, as it would turn out.
The final hand tonight was just epic. I take 63o, flop an OESD with 74Q rainbow on the board, and Grandy runs the board out with a pair of 5s giving him trip 5s, but filling my straight on the turn. I’m trying to figure out how to get value out of my straight, and I’m slightly worried he could have hit a full house with the paired board, but I’m over him in chips by about 1000, and I figure this is a good hand for me, no flush is possible with this board, and I’m willing to pay off big if he can beat a straight. We re-raised each other back and forth until he’s all in, and then we show down. Check it out:
Now how could anyone expect to get beat by 63 here? I’m sure he must have felt like I was raising with top pair here, and didn’t put him on a 5, but that’s exactly what I knew he had when he put in a big river bet. I just wasn’t sure if he had trips or a boat, but with the straight I figured it was worth testing him for it.
Playing a 100% range heads up, poker can be pretty fun with deep stacks.
The hand before, I had just missed on a straight draw, as well, and got edged out by one rank, 87s under 97o, and for a decent-sized pot of 360 chips, too. I had felt reasonably confident about hitting the straight, but didn’t do it that time. Fortunately, I wouldn’t have to wait long.
I wish the game could have went on longer, but that’s how it is when only two players make it to the table.
@GrandyB and I have been talking off and on for the past few weeks about making some changes to the league in order to see if we can boost participation. The league membership currently stands at 35 players, but we seldom see more than 6 at a table at a time.
To that end, some time ago I created a survey, and so far we’ve only gotten just 6 responses out of it. We were hoping to get more participation in the survey than that, but it seems that the league membership consists mostly of players who stopped caring about the league, but never formally exited.
I wanted to get more responses to get more meaningful results, but maybe it’s best to get the ball rolling with what we have.
We’re still talking about what specific changes we’ll make, and we’ll announce a proposal soon. The survey results are below, and my hope is that we can get some good discussion going about what we’d like to see, and hopefully converge to a broad consensus.
So it seems like the things we can control here are to change the time, the type of game being played, and the stakes. We’ll discuss that more below.
If you need more people to show up to get you to show up, be the change you want to see in the world and show up! Bring a friend while you’re at it.
The takeaway here is that @GrandyB need not worry that his reminder messages are annoying. That said, they don’t seem to have done much for boosting participation. Setting a reminder on your calendar is a good idea, too. It’s easy to set up if you have an app on your smart phone.
Looks like most people are interested in No-Limit Hold’em and Omaha Hi-Lo. I’m the one guy who likes the fact that we play Limit Hold’em, and the reason I like it is that I think it works well with the “must show” rule, and the purpose of the league to be a place where players can come to learn the game. Limited bet sizes make the game more challenging for me, since I can’t easily place a bet on early streets that will encourage the table to fold, and this in turn allows players to hit draws, and also enables players to play lower paired hands with more success. Both of which might seem at first to tend to discourage bluffing, but in reality encourage you to discover better bluffing tactics, which will make you a more effective player in NLHE as well.
But that said, I’m very comfortable playing NLHE if it’ll bring more players to the table, and I’m open to playing some Omaha, although I’m terrible at it and have next to no clue what I’m doing. But hey, a low-stakes Omaha Hi-Lo game could be just the thing to get me learning.
We’re even split between preferring 6 and 9 seat tables. But since we can’t fill a 9-seat table, I think we ought to try switching the games to 6-seat, and as we (hopefully) see participation pick up, we’ll get to experience an actual multi-table game.
I’m not 100% sold on the idea, yet, because as soon as we see a 7th regular player, it’ll mean we’ll briefly play 3-4 handed, until someone busts, then collapse to a 6-seat table. I haven’t seen a small MTT league grow to appreciate the dynamic of how that works, so I don’t know whether it would present any special concerns or issues, or if it’d be fine. But mostly I’d just like to see a full table, and ideally multiple tables.
We seem to be pretty evenly distributed on this question, but it seems there’s more interest on Tuesday than any other night. But it’s pretty even, really, and with the number of responses, it’s not clear that the results on this question are meaningful. It’d be a lot better if we could get 20-30 players together on one night/week than to get 3 players together 3-5 nights/week. I was hoping we’d see one clear day that would be far and above the favorite beyond all others, and I don’t think we can see that from this data.
Again, the number of responses makes these results less meaningful than I would have hoped, but from these two questions, it’s pretty clear that there’s a preference for later games, at least among the 6 respondents.
Fully half of the responses indicate a start time of 10pm or later would be ideal, and 2/3 of the responses indicated 10pm or later would be their 2nd best start time. Nobody indicated a preference for Morning or Afternoon games. Earlier this year, there was interest in moving the TTh games to 4pm, and from what I’ve seen, those games are getting canceled more often than not due to lack of participation.
I reviewed the league membership, and we have only 3 players from Europe, one player in Uruguay, and everyone else is in the US/Canada. The US/Canada players seem to be mostly East coast, New England, Midwest, and South, so mostly Eastern time zone, but we do have some Central and Pacific time zone players, and it seems like they’d probably favor later start times.
I see two reasonable recommendations to give in light of this:
- Run fewer games during the week.
- Run our games at 10pm ET or later.
By running games on fewer nights, it’s possible we could lose players who could only play on the night we dropped the game. But on the other hand, by having just one or two nights/week, it would concentrate those of us to playing in those one or two games, rather than spread us thin over 4-5 games. A full table would attract more players, and this would help the league grow more than losing the players who couldn’t make the night we pick would hurt.
We don’t currently run any weekend games, but if we did, there seems to be a clear preference for an early evening start time. But again, I’d rather see us narrow our focus to 1-2 nights/week than to try to spread ourselves thin.
Nobody thinks the buy-in is too low. Which, given that it’s 2500 chips, is not surprising at all. Some of us like that it’s a low buy-in, as it keeps the games less about winning chips, and more about enjoying the game, and it enables players who want to learn to play better to do so in a more structured low-stakes game than you typically see in low-stakes SNG or ring play, and this affords us the opportunity to experiment with different strategies.
I have to say, I really like the play I see in this league, and the low buy-in doesn’t detract from my interest at all. I like a casual, friendly game, and I’ve also learned from playing in Disclosure league, different approaches to take with bet sizing, when and how to bluff, and so on. I think I’d learn more if we filled tables, because the short-handed game is very different from what you get at a full table. So if a higher stakes buy-in game would bring in more players, I’m for it.
We didn’t ask in the survey, but we could consider upping the stakes gradually, or we could agree on a higher stakes level, and go straight there. I’d hate to price out our lower-ranked players who would have bankroll management problems staying in the league, though. I think a good follow-up topic for discussion is what stakes level makes us most happy? 2.5K? 5K? 10K? 25K? 50K?
Finally, opinion is mixed on the re-buy games. Rebuy was a request from a member, and it was seconded, but yet fully 1/3 of the respondents don’t like rebuy. Even so, Rebuy Friday has been consistently the best attended night over the last few weeks. 50% of the responses either like rebuys exactly as-is (that is, limited number of rebuys, and only available in 2 of the 5 scheduled games during the week), or are indifferent.
I was the response who said that I didn’t see the point of the rebuy, since everyone always rebuys, just up the stakes. I do think I’ve occasionally seen someone forget to rebuy, and lose out on the advantage buying the extra chips in the middle of the game confers, though. So maybe we should evaluate whether to keep the rebuy game on the schedule if we up the stakes. Really, what’s the difference between playing a 2.5K buy-in + 2 optional rebuys, which everyone always takes full advantage of, or wants to, vs. a 10K buy-in game with no rebuys?
I do prefer to play in the Friday Night Rebuy game when I can, because I can win more chips from it, due to the extra rebuy chips and from the additional players. But it doesn’t matter to me how the chips got into the tournament jackpots – it’s the fact that they’re there at all, and that there’s more players in the game, which makes it more interesting, and less luck-dependent.
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Thank you so much for doing this pug!
I really want to see the league survive and even though it has struggled with participation I think most appreciate the format/rules.
I’m very open to whatever other players vote on as to times/days, games (even stupid Omaha) but I do think the pot limit and no muck rules are keepers or otherwise it loses it’s uniqueness.
If we can get ppl to list their preferences here and pug can enter the data into his fancy schmancy magic machine we can get an objective idea as to what the majority wants to see and hopefully the league will grow… so please give pug as much info as you can.
Thanks again pug,
Randy
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Just my two cents:
The overall purpose of the league is twofold: 1 is to have fun in a relaxed, no pressure atmosphere, and 2 to learn other players styles and experiment with new tactics.
Buy-ins levels are good. They allow players of all levels and ranks to participate.
Times are good. I can’t make the Tues/Thurs games, but those allow other time zones to participate.
The rebuy option is good for changing up strategy, but definitely would not want all games to be rebuys.
Omaha and hi/lo, in my opinion, would detract from the precepts of the league (i.e. learning strategies of other players by seeing the winning hands.) even though I enjoy playing them.
To me, the single most detractor from the league is lack of participation. I freely admit that I have not participated regularly, and for that I apologize to those who do. We have over 30 league members. When getting half a table of players is a ‘good’ session, it takes away from the concept of learning from others and being able to try different things. Particularly when it’s the same 2 or 3 players each time (no offense GrandyB) that show up.
That being said, I have really learned a good deal about play styles, techniques & tactics, and about myself and my play style while participating in the Poker Disclosure League. It is a great concept and a great tool for those who want to improve their game, but not so much for those who simply want to bank some chips.
The success (or failure) of PD depends on the League member, not just GrandyB and Pug. If each member (myself included) would commit to participating just 2 games per week, it would be a dramatic improvement. Once I get a few scheduling roadblocks cleaned up, I will PUBLICLY commit to at least 2 games per week and expect to be called out if I miss.
Just my thoughts.
Catch
3 Likes
I’m happy to help make the league grow.
It seems to me that a gradual approach would be best. If we make too many changes all at once, we won’t really know which ones helped.
On the other hand, if we have to wait a long time to see the effects of the changes, it could be a really long time before we hit the right formula. But that’s why it is so important to get feedback from the players to find out what they want.
I think it’d be a good idea to see what people have to say over, say, the next week, and then make a change, and see how it goes.
So, players, don’t be shy, what do you think?
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Great job Pug on the charts and surveys ! I apologize for never showing up I really do mean to but the night games that start at 9 I am usually involved in my League , still playing hopefully , or cheering on the ones who are. If games started at ten there would be a better chance of me making it to games. I still love the NO MUCK rule which as you know is the same in my League. The buy in is good , I prefer no limit but can play limit.I also am not a rebuy fan just because I am not used to rebuy games but I guess I could get used to it.I agree that you will never get rich playing but you can learn so much by no mucking also you play with the same people in Leagues and it’s a nice friendly atmosphere. I will try to play more often . Thanks Randy and pug for working so hard to make it work!
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Thanks for the contribution. I agree with you on most points. I think the rebuy games are interesting, and I don’t mind them, and I also don’t mind playing low stakes for fun and to learn and experiment. I think these factors contribute to the purpose of the league and serve to make it distinct from other games played on this site.
The only thing I have to disagree with is the TTh times. In theory, it was a good idea. People asked for it, and I’m glad that we tried it, but from the data I’ve been tracking, these games have been canceled a majority of the time, due to lack of participation. I’ve been tracking since 9/9/19, and in that time, which is about a month and a half, we’ve had exactly one Tuesday game, and one Thursday game. The rest have all canceled. That’s just 2/11 games making quorum. So it seems like a waste to schedule games at that time.
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Yes that slot obviously needs to be moved, we just need to have everyone’s input on what that time should be.
Sharon and Jan have always (understandably) had issues with making the night games because they’re too early so I’m leaning toward 10 pm but want everyone’s input.
I should also mention, one thing I do not want is for this discussion make anyone feel guilt over not being able to make games and show up because they feel obligated somehow.
This is only to find out the wants and needs of everyone as a whole.
Thanks to all in advance for your input!
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i do not often play but would like to try to make it more often. My big issue is dealing with late registration i personally hate it and if they want it they should have a 5 minute time period then close it i was in a game last week that started out with 35 and when i left despite doing well there were 79 that totally disgusted me
Juneboy did you reply to the right thread? There’s a discussion about late registration going on elsewhere in the forum right now, and I wonder if you meant to respond there.
In case you didn’t: Disclosure league games have late registration, and it is set to 5 min. We typically go from 2-3 players to 5-6, thanks to late registration, and I’m grateful to have it.
Actually it USED to be 5 minutes…I had it changed to 15 min because ppl complained it was too short.
If it ever becomes the problem juneboy mentioned (44 late registrations) then we can vote on changing it.
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Assuming that the majority of league members are in the US or Canada, then moving the Tues/Thurs games to a later time would probably be in the best interest of everyone. Most of the time, I cannot play at 4pm ET due to professional obligations, but moving it to the 10pm ET slot might allow me to participate on those days. Those who work or have family often cannot play until the later time slot (at least for US and Canadian players).
I haven’t polled the membership, but I’m certain that other countries are represented, so I think hearing from them before making a change is the proper thing to do. As I have been told many times over, “you know what happens when you assume?”, well you know the rest.
hello i was responding to grandyb but i could ot find other area for our poll juneboy
Edw Gates
edward.j.gates@verizon.net