It is hard to explain my online situation to reasonable people. I can go from one day having a great bankroll to the next day play 2-4No Limit. Yesterday was different. I had enough money to play in the games I am supposed to be in so I started the day on Bodog playing 10-20NL. I saw a bunch of people from my old stomping grounds at p5’s and a bunch of my guys through UltimatePals. My big leak in NL is that I call too much, while I have been playing in lower limits I have been working on my patience. I jumped out to a good lead and got it all in on a 4 way pot with 8s7s, while some people might not like the play, I really didn’t mind it. If you play 8s7s hitting a flop like 6h 9h 4s is about what you are looking to hit. AA held up and I was down 2k, nice return off of the bench. I rebought and won back about a thousand before I was exiled from the down stairs so my kids could watch “Freaky Friday”. Why exactly is Lindsay Lohan so talented?
I watched D.L. Hughley comedy special on HBO for an hour before I got back on. I decided to play a couple of games of 5-10, one No Limit and one Pot Limit. Boy were the results different. As I move back into playing higher limits there is a certain level of getting used to the play that I will have to just pay the price on but I made one call that I am even embarrassed about as I think about it this morning. At Bodog I was real card dead for about 3-4 hours and in general I was feeling run over. Which is a bad way to feel playing NL and I likely should have just left. Anyway, I called in a multi way pot with 3c5c and the flop came 7h4h6h, not the nuts but no one else has 8 5. I checked it from early position and one of my guys bangs it for the pot. I call. Turn is an Ace but no heart, I check he bangs it for pot. Now I know for almost fact he doesn’t have the straight or the flush but I never really stopped and said, what exactly does he have? When the board pairs he moves all in like he missed his flush and like a big fish I bite for like $1200, this is 5-10, no one makes that play at 5-10, if I want to be serious about playing again this is a call I can’t make. You could say that I could have banged the pot on the turn but frankly that wasn’t how I was going to play it given my table image and the fact that no one had me on 3c5c. I can’t stop thinking about how bad of a play that was by me. I ended up down 3k on Bodog.
FTP by contrast was the complete opposite. I had 2 guys that had no idea. I actually laid 2 sets when 4 flushes hit, which begs the question, why was I playing with such clarity in one game and not in the other? I did get in a tricky situation for a big pot that had me splitting the pot. If I go broke there I would have been down 4k for the day, not a huge loss but would have been frustrating. I tied the pot when I had 7 8 against his 7 6 on a 66 x flop. One other really big hand was kind of funny. You have to remember that I am looking to stack a couple of donkey’s, so I am looking to catch them with a weird hand while they are holding something like A K. This is also pot limit, so post flop play is important. I called a raise and a reraise with 3d4d, for about $125. The flop came 4 K 6 with one diamond. All of us had decent stacks, the first guy checked and the second guy bet half the pot, which was a pretty big bet but I called. I am ideally hoping to hit a 4, which I realize might not be good but I tend to gamble with the bad players. Even this morning I am certain the guy I was playing with thinks I am possibly the worst player he has ever played with. The turn brought a 2, now I am not going anywhere, unless he bets pot, he doesn’t and I call his $200 bet into about an $800 or so pot. I am still not ruling out a hand like A K. The river bricks, I check and he checks. He shows A Q for nothing and I take down the $1200 or so pot. I really doubt that a lot of players get involved in these situations but I feel like that is a play you need to have in your bag.
When it was all said and done I got most of the money from the bad players and won 4k on Full Tilt.
Ultimately I won about a dime but I can’t stop thinking about how badly I played that one hand. Overall I would give myself a B minus for the day. I could have played more aggressively at times but I think I was playing a winning style against bad players. Against winning players I think I would have lost money. So I have some work to do.