What Goes Down...

Why do I even bother? I ramble on about bad beats and post a vow to stay away, yet later that evening I stop at the Midway anyhow... just to see what's going on, yeah, that's it, really. I buy in for $60 and promptly lose it. No bad beats, just paying blinds and seeing flops. I shake my head in disbelief and pull out the last $60 of my monthly allocated Poker cash. Might as well blow it all now if I'm not playing for the rest of the month, right?

Three hours later, I've recovered my first buy-in, as well as an additional $250. The Poker Gods must have seen my threat to join the dark-side of fishiness, as I folded crap hands and didn't have to see them hit, and I would get one decent hand every other orbit that would hold up. That's the way it's supposed to work, right?

There were two MAJOR hands for the night. The first one, I have to give thanks to all the bloggers out there that post their thoughts and strategies on outplaying opponents and on how to milk every last bet possible. I can't name any specific names, as I skim a lot and click around randomly on my blogroll over there; but when there's strategy talk, I pay close attention and assimilate the data presented. And I was glad to be able to finally put it all into practical use last night!

I raise QQ in LP and get a flop of AQ3 with 2 clubs. I know Aces are gonna call, clubs are gonna chase, but one guy bets out before me. I raise him, some callers in between, and the bettor re-raises me. I take a thoughtful pause... I know he's a pretty tight solid player, so he would have raised preflop with AK and definitely reraised me with AA, so I rule out a set of Aces. He wouldn't be so aggressive if he was just chasing clubs, so it's either gotta be two-pair (AQ or A3 as he wouldn't play Q3) or a set of 3s. Whichever it was, I had him beat. I just had to dodge clubs, and as much as it'd be nice to have the board pair for a Full House, it could give him Aces full to beat my Queens full, or potentially Quads. It happened earlier with KK vs. 88 and a board of K8x8x. Huge pot, KK was pale as a ghost when he saw the Snowmen. At this point, I was happy with set over set or two-pair.

So here's where I considered something I read about that someone called the Third Level (or was it Fourth level?) of Poker playing. Beyond the ability of just reading your opponents.. this is the step where you make your opponent put you on a hand, incorrectly of course. Since I had been playing tight as well, my pre-flop raise most likely indicated AK or Pocket A/K/Q. If I had re-raised him and capped it on the flop, he knows he's up against AA or QQ and I'd only be serving to slow him down, forcing me to lead out on the Turn and River. I know TPTK is usually no good when you get re-raised, and I knew he knew it, so I decided to represent AK with just a call to his 3-bet.

Turn was a blank. Same pattern as the flop: I only called his 3-bet... let him keep thinking his hand was good. River was another airball, thank goodness. Here's where I turned it on and re-raised him. He looked shocked and had to call my bet... even though I was first to show, he flipped over his Pocket 3s before I pulled the chip off my cards. Perfect.

Guy next to me asked why I only called on the Flop and Turn. I shrugged and told him I thought he might have been slowplaying AA. Heh.

I'm not at the point yet where I can easily keep track of BBs during a hand, or anytime while at a table, so I took a little break after that hand and went out into the lounge and tallied up the bets on the back of a receipt to see if I played that the best I could.

A three-bet on the flop (1.5BB), 3BB on the Turn, and 4BB on the River got me 8.5BB out of his stack. If I had capped it on the flop (2 BB), then I most likely would have had to lead out and just been called on the last two streets for a total of 4BB. If I played it where I called the flop (1.5BB) then capped the Turn (4BB), I would have only gotten 1 more out of him on the River for a total of 6.5BB. So yeah, I took the best course of action I think I could have. And then there was the gravy from the other callers who got stuck in the middle. :)

Wow, I have one good night and I turn into a babbling fool. Seriously though, it felt nice to be able to get a hand, and then be able to take what I've learned, what I've read about, what I've thought about in traffic, what I have wet dreams about, and put it to good use at the table.

The second major hand was a no-brainer. I call a pre-flop raise with AK. Flop is AKJ, with the A and J being hearts. Too many players in and too many ways to be beat, so I avoided the Fancy Play Syndrome and just called the bet or two that was put out on each street. Turn is a blank, and the River is the King of Hearts. Everyone ooooohs at the possibility of the Royal Flush and the $2500 Monte Carlo, but no one has it. Someone did flop a Straight though, another caught their Flush on the River. Inital pre-flop raiser has KJ. Nice hands, but I take the pot.

So the night started off slowly... okay, it started off rather poorly. But damn am I glad I rebought and stuck it through! I'm kind of scared now, though. I know what goes up must come down, and what goes down doesn't always necessarily make it out of the hole that it dug itself into (I'm reminded of a recent personal Blackjack tragedy). I got lucky last night and it seems to be a really nasty roller coaster ride right now. I'm not even technically up for the past few weeks, so should I be happy with almost breaking even now, or ride out the potential rush I'm on?

Guess I'll just have to buckle back up and see which way I'm heading. Any bets on how soon before I quit again? :)