Tonight's play

Wow. Up more than 90 dollars in about 3 hours at the $20 NL tables. Sweet.

Early in the evening, I had a misclick that cost me about 15 dollars. I meant to bet about $2.00 and bet $17.60 on the turn. Unfortunately all I had was a pair of aces and somebody else had just hit a straight. Craptacular. I quit immediately and took some time off. I had already been up so much that I still booked an $8.00 profit for that part of the evening though. So I felt ok.

The rest of the evening just kept being positive. Lots of crazy bad players. Like one guy who insisted on calling my pre-flop reraise, then re-raising me on the flop when a Q hit: he had Q5 and I had AQ! And A hit on the turn, I went all-in, and he called!! Crazy stuff. Another guy called a preflop raise with QT, I had QQ. Rags on the flop, I bet out, he flat calls with nothing. T on the turn, I bet again, he raises me all-in! Unreal. Makes it easy to win money wow.

A bunch of people playing things like K6 and K3 and hitting their K and thinking they were good. One guy had $50 at the table, he re-raised on the flop and it turned out he was playing K2o from out of position but at least he had hit two pair before he reraised. I guess he counted as a "good" player.

The biggest hand of the night went like this. I had KQ of spades in BB. One guy raises, we all call. About $3.00 and 5 of us to the flop. The turn has JTx with one spade: open-ended top straight draw and backdoor 2nd nut flush draw for me. Not bad. I check it, somebody bets about $2.00, 4 people call! (I'm the last to call, so I'm definitely getting the odds.) Turn is a spade, so I have the flush draw still. I check, someone bets, small stack is all-in, call, call, bigger stack is all-in, call, call. 4 of us in the pot. A 9 hits on the river for my straight and I win. From $15 to $46 in one hand. Sweetness.

Anyway, a great night. Decent play, terrible opponents. I didn't try to make any plays almost all night long. I took down one pot without cards that I remember, that's all. Not sure if I tried to take down any more. My cards were either terrific or terrible, so I was playing for real or folding. Good stuff.

One probable bad play made me money. I limped in and then called a raise from a small stack with QTo. Everybody else folds & we're heads-up. I didn't think the small stack necessarily had much. Anyway, the flop came QTx, he went all-in, I called and won. He had AA so I was very very lucky that time.

Last night's results

Up 30 bucks in 45 minutes. Very nice. I need to play more hours, but Thursdays are busy for me.

I did get an AA, but it lost for me. Raise to $1.00, get only one caller, a short-stack. Flop comes all one suit, of which I have zero. I bet about another $1.00 and he goes all-in for $2.00 more. He had A6o but had the A of the suit in question and caught the 4th flush card on the turn to beat me. No biggie, just a few bucks, and he was very lucky to have any chance at all with A6o against AA. He was still an underdog when we were all-in too, I wonder if he knew that.

I played much tighter and better overall. Had a nice time getting fishies hooked & reeling them in.

But again the last hand of the night I threw some money back. Just a couple of bucks but it was dumb and unnecessary. I played 76s from ep (first mistake) and then I called a bet on the flop with it when I had only hit a 7 for 2nd pair (2nd mistake).

There really is a difference in feeling, inside of me, when I'm playing a hand I should not be playing. It's not an unpleasant feeling, exactly, more of a "gambling" feeling, a feeling of "I might get lucky, I should stick around and see what happens next." When I get that feeling, I should definitely resist it! Just play the good hands and you'll make a bunch and cut your variance way down!! Yes you can catch lucky, but even when you do you may not make enough back to make it worthwhile.

I folded 98o from ep yesterday then watched the flop comes T7x and the turn with a 6 after it was checked around. I would have had the straight! Ohh, I need to play 98o! Wait, no, stop, stop stop. Would I have made much money on the hand? Nope, nobody else had hit much of anything and they weren't betting at it. And if somebody HAD hit something good, they might have bet strong on the flop. So in order to catch my straight AND make serious money with it, I probably would have had to make another call for which I wasn't getting the odds. Just keep folding 98o unless you're in position on a passive table with calling stations.

A learning hand from last night

2 lessons learned on one hand. 10c/20c NL on GC as usual.

I get AK in LP after several limpers, raise to $1.00. I get one caller.

Flop comes Kxx. The guy bets out, I raise, he calls.

Turn is another x. He bets out, I raise, he calls.

River is another x. Board hasn't paired, all smallish cards, no likely straights, no flushes.

He bets out again, about 1/5 of the pot. I think about raising again, but I can't imagine what the guy could be betting with again after being raised twice. He may have two pair or something. If I raise and he re-raises big, I feel like I would have to fold, and I don't want to take that chance. So I just call.

He was playing KQ and was dominated the whole way.

Two lessons learned.

#1: DO NOT PLAY KQ AGAINST A RAISE. You could be dominated easily, and you feel like you have a good hand but you're basically dead. Everybody knows that except the fish. Glad this guy didn't know it. And now that I have seen this hand, I know it at a much deeper place in myself than I did before.

#2: Blocking bets really can work. I don't know if that's what this guy intended, but his smallish bet on the river sure worked as a blocking bet. It put a little scare into me, and with just a decent, not a great hand, I had to just call. If he had checked to me I would have bet more than that to him, and it would have cost him more to see the river. Anyway, what I'm thinking is this: A BLOCKING BET CAN WORK IF YOU PUT THE OTHER GUY ON A DECENT BUT NOT GREAT HAND.

Tonight's play

Up $10.05 in just over 2 hours on the $20 NL tables at Gaming Club. Not terrible, not great. I was patient. I didn't try steals or crazy plays. Both of those things are definite improvements over how I had been playing previously. I had QQ three times, and raised it big preflop all three times. Twice the flop came with overcards, I bet anyway & got re-raised big & dropped it. The third time I won a small pot when undercards came.

I also caught TPTK with AJ and bet out, kept betting out against two callers, and had to drop it when the board went to 4-straight and a guy went all-in.

So my good hands aren't doing that much, no great luck, but I'm still up for the night. I need to feel good about that. I can't even remember the last time I had AA. I'm playing OK with not so great cards, which is good.

I identified a few more crazy calling stations who called me down with who-knows-what and lost to my top pair type hands. That was nice. That was mostly very early in the evening -- I was actually up about 15 bucks in the first twenty minutes.

The only biggish hand of the evening that I remember: I had T8o, hopefully in a blind. (I'm pretty sure it was a blind because I tightened up a bunch tonight -- probably all the way from LAG to sLAG.) Hit my T as top pair on the flop (T74), bet out most of the pot, get a caller. Check down the turn, which brings the 3rd flush card. Get my 8 on the river and bet another $1.00. I'm raised to $5.00. Oh crap do I call? Think & think. Finally call. He had 84o -- had hit bottom pair on the flop, and then bet big with his own two pair on the river. This guy had over 40 bucks at the table despite the fact that he was playing hands like that -- I saw him show down a similarly dreadful hand earlier.

I tend to only bet about 2/3 of the pot most of the time when I hit. I'm not sure why. If I raised it to full pot I wonder if my results would be better. I need to make myself try that, at least for a few sessions, sometime soon.

I think part of the reason I bet 2/3 pot is that I like to try to make steals of pots that I think might be unwanted. Sometimes I make very dumb steal attempts, though. But when I do that, I much prefer to bet say 75 cents into a $1.25 pot. That way I only have to win the pot say 40% of the time to break even. On the other hand, maybe I get called more often when my bets aren't quite pot-sized. Also, I definitely should work harder to tighten up my steal attempts.

The last hand of the night cost me a few dollars. It was the last hand because it was so dumb I couldn't believe I had done it. Sigh. I got K5s in the SB, tried a steal raise and got re-raised right back. Did I drop it? No! Did I call his minbets on the flop & turn hitting nothing, and then try a stupid almost pot-sized bet on the river that was called? Yes, I did. I admit it. He had JJ and all the cards were T or lower so there was no way he was folding. Sheesh. I should have dropped it preflop.

EXERCISE FOR THE EVENING. Meditate on this, Kent: when a player has yet to act at all in a hand, IT IS TOO EARLY TO PUT THEM ON A HAND. Just because he's in the BB doesn't mean he HAS to have crap. IF YOU ARE RE-RAISED ON A STEAL ATTEMPT, DROP IT. It looks weak, but it's sometimes good to have a weak image. Next time I try a steal attempt and HAVE a hand and somebody plays back at me thinking I'm weak, I'll be a happy man.

So the last hand lost me about 4 bucks. How stupid is that? Glad I quit when I did. Should have quit 1 hand earlier. :-)

Why not?

Tetsuo had a good idea today. A poker journal should really be in the form of a blog. Room for comments and everything else. I'll get this up and running now, and try to get comments later.