Poker - good days

The past few nights after work, I've been hopping onto Stars and Full Tilt to get a little poker fix. Things had been going bad on Stars, with my account dipping as low as $30 (lol) just through bad money management and an extended cold streak. I decided to put that $30 into play on two $0.10-$0.25 tables, and probably choose to end my run on Stars if I went broke. Instead, things started off mediocre, with me holding even for about an hour before one of my tables crashed down to being three-handed. I normally wouldn't have gone for that, of course, with shorthanded tables being so high variance, but my two opponents were so ridiculously passive that it turned out not to be so high variance after all. I just raised almost every hand and backed off when I hit resistance. It's a simple strategy and against overly meek players it happens to work. Things were going my way on top of that: every draw seemed to hit: every time I had a monster, I seemed to be up against a good hand; every decent player left quickly; every poor player rebought.

That table continued heads-up for several more hours and before I knew it my $15 buy-in had turned into $100. My favorite hand of that stretch:

3-handed, on the button with 4d 6d. Of course that's a raising hand, I pump it up to my normal $1. Call from the small blind, call from the big blind. Very very odd, but suddenly I'm happy as the flop came 2s 3s 5h. Wewt :) But now, how to play it. I'd feel stupid to slow-play it and get eaten up when two more spades come or something, but I didn't want to blow my wad right away. In any case, the SB checked, the BB bet out $0.50 into the $3 pot, and now I'm faced with a decision. Call, small raise ($1-$1.50), or sizable raise ($2-$3)? I elected for a small raise and pumped it up to $1.25, hoping to elicit check-calls on later streets against a hand (I figured him for one pair) that was likely going to be scared by cards on later streets.

Then the small blind min-raised us both to $2! I actually cackled, "Gotcha, bitch!" as the BB gave a hesitant call. I decided there was no sense messing around and raised all-in, to the Small Blind's $13. He had something he thought was enormous and he wasn't messing around. He insta-called and the BB insta-folded. The SB had Ac As!!!!!!! The board came with two meaningless cards and I stacked him. Wewt.

The funny thing that happened then was that he started swearing up a storm at me, I mean, really getting angry. "What the fuck was that, you fucking fish?" I type back, "You deserve it for slow-playing" and he said "You already raised for me, who the fuck raises with 4-6?" I decided to shut up then as he obviously wasn't paying enough attention - I didn't want to clue him in that I was raising every hand, even though you'd think that'd be obvious. Whatever. Apparently this guy had never heard of a reraise :) Who slow-plays aces pre-flop at a $0.10-$0.25 table anyway?

In any case, the dude rebought and proceeded to give me another $15 before quitting.

Then the other damn table became short-handed and I started winning there too. By the time I was done there I had about $60 in front of me. I could hardly believe it - over $130 won in just a few hours at two $0.10-$0.25 NL tables.

Last night, I played in a $24 tourney over at Full Tilt, and did well in it, finishing in 44th out of 735 or so. I got my money in good twice, once on a sick call with AJ on a 228 board against a stop-and-go from the big blind that shoved with Q3 (the turn came a J and the river came a Q, just to make it extra excruciating), and my final short-stacked all in was an AT against KQ (flop came KKJ and I was essentially drawing dead). I win those two pots and I'm with the leaders, but I lost them and finished with a measley $60 payout or so. But still, two pretty decent days.

Man, the dude that put the chat up that I posted last night was one of the worst players I've ever seen at the 0.5-1 NL level. Almost never raised pre-flop, almost never protected anything in any situation where protection was warrented, went bust when the button limped with KT, he checked his big blind with AA, and the flop came JQA. I laughed :)

I was up about $80 at my high point but tried a couple of silly bluffs and wound up up about $20. That was $20 I spent on a tournament, a $5+R limit OH8 tourney. 257 entrants, top 30 spots paid, I crashed out at 35. I was 3rd in chips with about 40 to go when I hit a monster pot, big blind with KJ84 (no meaningful suitedness) checking from the big blind. The flop came KJ8 for three pair, two diamonds and a spade :). The small blind bet out (very aggressive player), I raised figuring my 2pair was good for the moment, and wanted to drive out any weak high draws and runner-runner lows. Button, who also had a big chip stack, called the two cold, and the small blind called. Crap. The turn comes, a 3 (second spade), SB checks, I bet, both call. River comes, a ten of spades, for a board of KsJd8d3sTs, check, I check, trying to figure out a way I'm still ahead, button bets. SB calls and I think about it for a while, eventually calling in the hope that I'm up against a weaker two pair, though I probably should have folded.

The button dragged the pot with AT8s7s!!! Um what? I asked him straight up, what the hell was he thinking on the flop. He didn't respond. That hand all but crippled me and I never really recovered. As is usually the case in these bad beat hands near the bubble in tournaments, had I won it, I'd have been a dominating chip leader. Instead I was all but broke. Oh well, next time...

Possibly the funniest online poker chat ever