Trending Upward

Well I'm WAY behind on reading and have yet to even get to WPBT trip reports yet, but I just have to blog before I forget everything that's happened.

Since Dec. 1, when I deposited $50 at Mansion, I have made $420. $280 of it was made online in $5 and $10 SNGs and $.25/.50 NL cash. Not only am I VERY comfortable at this level, and are players giving me buy-ins with reckless abandon, but I'm actually *very* close to being appropriately bankrolled for this level! I made about $40 at our poker night on Friday, attributed to 2 baby cashes in tournaments and some cash game winnings. And then Sunday I ventured out to the casino for a little $1/2 NL, where I managed to double my $100 buy-in.

So...all is good. Poker gods, you just simmer down. I'm not getting cocky, I'm just simply reporting on what's been going on.

Last Friday I was home for the day. I played a couple of different sessions, and I'll be damned if it wasn't the first time I believe I've won on a day off. In the morning I managed to take my $220 and turn it into $270. This win can all be attributed to cash games, as players just couldn't help but dump buy-ins to me. I played one $10 MTT that I was really excited to play well in and win (the 67 person field was quite ripe for the taking), but my hopes were dashed early when I flopped a set of 2s on an all heart board, and when I pushed, I was called by the ace of hearts, and his flush fell on the turn. That was dirty, but at least it was early. I also played in a $10 SNG, which I don't recall making much of a splash in. But I had doubled my buy-in in one cash game, and the $20 win at another cash table covered my tourney losses. I then took a break for lunch, and went back at it again. I popped open another cash game and another $10 SNG. This time in the SNG I went out the very first hand when my 10 10 got all in against QQ. I was hoping for AK or AQ, but obviously missed on my read there. At this point I got mad at myself for donking off $33 in buy-ins at the $10 level when I was killing the $5 level. But I wasn't *that* mad, because yet again, I was killing the cash game. With about 2 hours until I was due to leave for poker night, I decided to give one more SNG a try to try and get the monkey off my back. I came from 6th out of 6 left to win that one, and the $45 cash gave me a $1 profit at the $10 level, and enough to take me off ten dollar tilt. Meanwhile, I had cashed about $20 in cash games, to bring my 2nd session profit total to $50 again. So that's a $100 online Friday, and had me in a good mood headed off to poker night.

I don't need to get too deep into the details of poker night, although I made a couple of solid critical plays for some cash, the structure is too disgusting for anything to really matter. After a poor start in the first tourney which amounted to winning one single hand and then blinding out around the middle of the pack, I had some decent hands hold up for a nice cash game win, then took 3rd and 2nd in the last two tourneys. Second would've paid decent earlier in the night, but we only had 9 players for the last tourney. Regardless, its always nice to win a little pocket change at poker night.

Sunday the wife headed out home for some baking, and I decided I'd head out and have a go at the Sunday noon tournament bustees at the local casino. My buddy and I got seats at the $1/2 NL table that was just kicking up at about 12:45, and it was off to the races.

Down
I lost somewhere in the neighborhood of $50 on the very first hand when my KJ in the SB paired a 10 X J flop, then rivered a K-high straight, only to lose to an unraised preflop AK that had turned the nuts. I bet the pot when I hit top pair second kicker on the flop, but it wasn't enough to chase out the drawer two seats to my left. We checked the turn (Q), and then he raised my $15 bet on the river 9 and I paid him off, knowing I was only beat by AK, and with no preflop raise, I couldn't put him on it. I was disappointed, but I think I probably lost the least amount possible in the hand, and he got ridiculously lucky to have me on a hand I couldn't get away from. That's poker. Time to get to work.

Up
Thankfully I didn't have to wait but a couple of revolutions until I picked up AA in the big. I raised to $7 preflop and got at least 6 callers, which I wasn't thrilled about. With a small raise like that you know you're gonna get some callers, but that is a LOT of hands that could crack my aces. The flop came XQK rainbow, and I immediately moved my short stack in. I believe it was only a little bit more than the pot. Immediately after I moved in I realized that it would have been simple for someone to have called preflop w/QK, and I felt like I had just done myself in. But the story ends well, as your hero doubles through one player who didn't show down, and picks up all the preflop action as well, which put me up over my $100 buy-in.

Down
The next big hand happened a few more times around the table later when I picked up 68c UTG. I have really been experimenting with suited gappers lately, and a recent article I read said its a good hand to raise UTG if you feel like getting tricky. Well, I felt like getting tricky, but was too much of a wimp to raise, so really what happened was I was playing a terrible hand out of position. And I paid the price when the flop came 6 4 8, I bet, was raised all-in by UTG+1, was happy to call, only to see his pocket 8s. A 7 of clubs gave me some hope on the turn, then a river 6 gave me the third nuts. Which, of course, lost to the nuts. And I'm down to about $30. This hand is irritating because I had no business in it, but chances are even if I had raised it like I was "supposed to", the 8s would've stayed with me and the result would've been the same. Of course the obvious answer is to fold the hand, but I didn't do that this time, so cest la vie.

Up
By the time I played my next hand, I was hovering around the $25 mark, and was looking for a hand to push with. Of course, I could've chipped up to $100, but that's just not how I roll. I wanted to either win my way back or bust and rebuy. Here I picked up AKc in the big blind, and pushed my last $25 or so. I got 3 callers, the flop brought an ace, and my hand held up. And I'm back in the game. At this point I never looked back.

Up, Up, Up
I eventually picked up KK again in the BB, which saw a raise from the table's resident LAG. I re-raised her, and she called. The flop actually came Ace-high, which I hated, but knew I was up against the one opponent who could easily not have an ace. Regardless, after going into the tank for a while, I checked, and she checked behind. I think she thought she was catching me trying to slow play here, so I really had her right where I wanted her. The turn was a blank, I checked again (I know...weak), and she checked behind. The river was another blank, and here I made a weak bet (something like $20) at the decent sized pot. She thought for a while and min-raised me, and I had to pay it off. I was just looking to get out of the hand and with any luck take it down. I think she said she had a lower pocket pair. I know I couldn't have played this hand much worse, but I was just happy to take it down. After that I won another pot that turned out to be a decent size when I called a J-high, uncoordinated board down with nothing more than AK. I liked my play here as I limped my AK preflop UTG, and a donkey who was down about $175 made it 5 to go from MP. I think a couple more, including the crazy loose chick (poker loose, you perverts) called the $5, and we saw a J-high, uncoordinated flop. We checked around. On the turn 3, the MP donkey put his last $15 all-in reeking of weakness, LAG called, and I called. The turn was another blank, we checked down, and I took the pot w/AK high.

I'm only gonna pain you with one more hand, as it was a little bit interesting, and a little bit creepy. For about three table revolutions I had been hovering around the $190-195 mark. My buddy had gotten his ass handed to him for to the tune of 2 buy-ins (poor guy couldn't catch a break, it was pretty sick) and was gone, so I was looking to get to $200 and call it quits. But at the same time, I had a couple more hours I could've played and the action was pretty good if I could just get in a pot w/the right people, so I wasn't opposed to staying. Anyway, it comes to a point where I pick up A 10o on the button. I *always* take my two chips and toss them out, but for some reason this time I grabbed a stack to drop chips off the bottom of. Of course, in doing this, the chips were sticky and I manage to drop 3 instead of two. I pull back the other chip and let the action move on. I'd seen it happen a million times to other people, no big deal. Maybe it was because I didn't say call or something (even though I'm sure I probably did), but this time the dealer had issue with it and said that because I had dropped more than 2 chips, I had to raise. With a decent holding like A 10 on the button, being up, and not wanting to give away any information about my hand, I didn't much mind, so I tossed in the extra two chips. As did the other 4-5 people in the hand. I'm surprised nobody re-raised at this point, but that's a whole other line of thought. The flop came all low, and we miraculously checked around. Which had happened probably 2 times previously with more than 3 people in a pot. The turn is a 10. It checks around again, I fire a pot-sized bet and take it down. Upon counting my chips, I find $201. A dollar to the dealer, and I've hit my mark. Creepy, no? I, of course, stick around for my last 9 hands, during which I find nothing interesting, and walk away with my doubled buy-in. Just a weird turn of events that really seemed like it was trying to tell me that my work there was done.

So all-in-all a damn decent 3 1/2 hour session. I made one glaring mistake w/the 68c UTG limp hand, but luckily some big hands held up for me and I was able to pull out a win. Did I play well enough to deserve a winning session? I'd like to think so, as I definitely made some plays and reads here and there. But I certainly thank the poker gods for plenty of good fortune as well. As I've said before, I really feel like I'm in my element playing live. I couldn't bullet point specifics, but I have a much better feel for the table than playing online. I have *always* had a natural talent at reading people in a general sense, and I find it simple to apply at a live table. Take, for instance, the hand where I called the small turn all-in w/just AK. Online I'd have never done that, giving the player credit for the J or any other pair. But live it was a pretty easy call based on the my general feel for how he got his money in, which resulted in about a $40 win. There are dozens of little things like that that I couldn't explain but I'm able to exploit when I'm playing live, so I really really like it.

That said, I'm finally taking an opportunity next Saturday night to test my "cherry picking the drunks" theory. I'm gonna take a nice long nap Saturday sometime, and then head out to the casino about 10 or 11 PM and play until I'm blue in the face. The idea is that hopefully by going out at that time I'll get into it with the more casual crowd that is out for a fun Saturday night, having some drinks, and spewing chips in the process. Meanwhile, I'll be there with my A game with my sights set directly on their stacks. Basically, its the same as going and playing in Vegas against tourists *anytime*, only my best opportunity is probably Friday or Saturday night here in the heart of the midwest.

So I'm REALLY looking forward to that. Until then, a little bit of online action this week, and hopefully things will continue to go well.