Moving on up.....no out. Im moving out.

After much turmoil which has resulted in much stress and difficulty in my life I am moving out from my current abode. I still haven't heard back regarding my promotion yet which sucks, however I can't wait any longer as the people handling the receivership of the property are selling it, so all tenants RAUS!!!

Therefore on Monday, which some greatly appreciated help from my Father, I will be moving. I have done packing and am currently sat in Cafe Nero, once again, with a hazelnut latte and caramel waffles. Had a pretty decent upswing of late, managing to scoop myself 6 BI in 2 days, and recovered from my 4 stack losing session of Thursday, so all in all life is good. Not back at work until Friday, then got Saturday morning then Saturday afternoon/Sunday off. So life is looking pretty sweet for the near future. This should give me a good shot at retaining my Gold Star status on Pokerstars, which I was super worried about losing given that for 1/2 the month I have had no internet. However thanks to the magic of the cloud and my phones wireless hotspotting I have managed to accumulate 1040 VPPs so far this month. Which considering I can only 2 table Zoom on my netbook is pretty damn good. I need another 1.95k VPPs this month to hit Gold. 6 hours of 4 tabling Zoom for 3 days should easily be enough to satisfy this.

I haven't done a well presented hand review for a while and there was a super interesting hand that I played yesterday that I am fairly proud of, and that is super profitable in zoom. Most of you know that back-raising is super profitable, and with certain hands is an easy move. In spite of this it is hardly ever done in Zoom (At 25NL at least) and so when I found a spot where it was a viable option I thought it would make a good post and review, if for no other reason than to reinforce to myself how profitable it is to do this in Zoom land, and that when a spot such as this arises that back-raising should be done.



PokerStars Zoom No-Limit Hold'em, $0.25 BB (9 handed) - PokerStars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Button ($15)
Hero (SB) ($31.31)
BB ($13.30)
UTG ($25)
UTG+1 ($12.90)
MP1 ($25)
MP2 ($77.76)
MP3 ($28.01)
CO ($11.40)

Preflop: Hero is SB with 8, 8
4 folds, MP3 bets $0.75, 2 folds, Hero calls $0.65, BB raises to $2.50, 1 fold, Hero raises to $20, 1 fold

Total pot: $5.75 | Rake: $0

There are a few important factors to consider here, firstly how aggressively does the 3 bettor defend his blinds. In this case over 200 hands BB was 3b 19% and ofc 88 is crushing a 19% range. He often has 1 over, but can't often call off unless he has AJs or AQo+ and even then it's close. Also it's important to consider whether or not the 3b thinks you are capable of flatting oop with a monster. In 25NL there is very few regs thinking on this level and in this case villain definitely isn't. However he is going to be scared to get his stack in with a medium Ax or some suited broadways. We can assume given how aggro he is going to be 3b a merged range. This is because when a fish at low stakes 3b super aggro it is usually because they overvalue their hand. "I have KJs, I can't just call his steal" We know this is shit thinking, as it is too good to turn into a bluff and vs a standard 3b calling range it is usually dominated.

Given that his range is going to be merged a lot here we can jam and get him to fold down to the nuts. When we consider that a 19% range consists of very few hands that can call here we rate to collect a lot of dead equity (and avoid paying rake....win!!!) but most importantly we collect a lot of dead equity which is obv fantastic with a hand like 88.

Anyway my coffee is going cold. So until next time.

K3ym4k3r signing off.