On business in Tulsa.  It turns out there are two very nice casinos within 15 minutes of the city.  When I arrive…errrr…very late I bee line for Cherokee casino.  It turns out that in three days it will be Hard Rock Casino Tulsa.  I almost drive past the huge building because the signage has already been changed.

Apparently the Cherokee used to host Scotty Nguyen’s tourney.  Ever since his 50k final table it has just been a poker tourney.  The poker room is big, with around 35 tables though there were three 1/2 NLHE games going on what the regulars hailed as a big thursday.

The play was very familiar 1/2 play, with the regular mix of players, except they might have had a few extra seniors at Cherokee.  I’m pleased to say that I think I played excellently.  After a while I did whittle my original $300 stack down to 100, by taking a few bad beats and making a few marginal calls (like getting it in on a 9 high flop against a good LAG with JJ).  The big turning point came near what had to be the end of my session– daybreak was coming and I had to get to the customer site.  I had grinder a big stack at the table of about 750, my opponent in this hand and I had been playing pots all night and he had me barely outchipped. In late position, I called 2 straddle-limpers with KK because I know this player behind me is virually certain to raise.  He did, to 35.  The limpets fold.  I go ahead and repop to 120.  He flat calls.  Flop comes KQ6 rainbow.  I work hard to calmly count out 150 (which I suspect could look like a cbet since I probably cbet 90% of all heads up pots).  He thought for a bit, based on his action I put him on TJ or AQ.  Eventually he shoved and of course I called with the current nuts.  He tables AT for the gutshot.  My set holds and I scoop my largest pot to date at around $1,550!

I put 500 on that table and left with 1600 and some change.  Not only that, but the table was full of some other music lovers and we had a blast making top 5 lists of artists by time period and genre (top 5 all time rock/pop acts: beatles, who, stones, zeppelin, rush with shout outs to the kinks, u2, aerosmith and pink Floyd.). One dealer, Paco, directs me to the Port City Diner (just on the other side of the highway) and I have an excellent country fried steak breakfast.  My day is going awesome.

My customer engagement ends a bit early.  I’m still riding super high from my big take at the Cherokee and I have an hour and a half to kill before I have to get to the airport.  I decide to make my way to River Spirit Casino, a sparkling new casino.  The whole casino is beautiful, including the poker room.  I get right into a game and chip up immediately thanks to the dealer giving me AA and JJ in the first two hands.  Though here’s where things change.  My $200 buy in is already $300.  There are 5 player who called the $5 straddle.  I have As 3s on the button.  Flop comes 334 rainbow.  Loose player opens for $10.  Tight player re-pops to  $35.  I don’t have a lot of respect for this player based on what I’ve seen from him so far.  I go ahead and repop to $110 and he thinks hard talking himself into shoving for about 180.  I said “you know I call and what I have”. He says “not a 3″.  I said “well then what?” and he says “two overs or a pocket pair” and then he flips 77.  What an idiot.  He’s only beating me if I re-popped him with a bare 4, two high cards (which I’ve shown I will raise with preflop) or a pocket pair worse than 7s.  Nice cars reading.  Of course, I’m only upset because he spiked a 7 on the river.  I didn’t have much time left and could only manage to chip up to a $75 loss for the session.  I shouldn’t play short sessions like that if I can help it.  Either way I got it in good.  I’m Sklansky-buck rich.  

Not how I wanted to end what was a great trip, but oh well.  I took over 1500 out of the Tulsa poker economy.  I’m glad to be playing well because I’ll be in Vegas for work next week (one of the largest casino companies is a customer, so I need to go out and help their technical team and stay on the strip for 3 days next week).  The week after i’ll be in montana again.  So I have a lot of hours of live poker coming up.  

I’m not sure what happened but I kind of ran out of blogging steam.  As I’ve commented before, part of that is that nothing surprises me in poker anymore.  People hit 2 outers on the river (I did it the other day).  People call down with flopped gutshots to big bets and catch on the river.  They don’t seem like bad beats as much anymore.  They seem like the way I’ll eventually make money at this game.

But, don’t take the lack of posting for lack of playing.  On the contrary, I’ve played a lot in the recent history.

I’ve made a couple of trips to the Horseshoe in Hammond (my favorite Chicago-area location to play, though a long drive).  I’ve played a couple times at the Grand Victoria (snagged a $600 $1/2 pot when pocket aces held up to two callers).  I’ve played a lot online (lately, I’m one of the many weak players trying to win a WSOP main event seat).  All that said, I’ve hit a couple of milestones.

I made my first trip to Vegas.  It was like a poker bender.  I think I played 40 hours of poker in 3 1/2 days.  I had several big-win sessions and a few small losing ones.  I cashed in a multi-table tournament and won another one.  The best part is that my poker-playing paid for the trip (with a profit of $82, woo-hoo).  Short trip report: the nicer the room, the harder the competition.  So, in order of descending niceness or descending hardness, I played at: Venetian, Bellagio, Caesars, MGM, Hard Rock, Harrah’s, Excaliber and the Flamingo.

Favorite hand in Vegas: I have to leave Harrah’s to catch a plane in 3 minutes.  I decide this is the last round of the table and and UTG+1 with 2s 6s and bet $8.  CO calls as does the loose BB.  Flop comes 345 rainbow.  BB bets out $15, I re-raise to $40, CO folds, BB calls.  Turn is irrelevant except that there’s now a potential flush draw.  BB checks and I bet $75 and he shoves and I insta-call.  River is a blank and I scoop a $250+ pot, play two more hands and fly home with a smile on my face.

—–

When I get back, work sends me to Lansing, Michigan to work with a customer.  I’m less than thrilled, until I realize 2 things.  Lansing has a poker room in it and I’m driving right by the Horseshoe, the Blue Chip and the Four Winds casinos.  The Blue Chip is newly renovated (by the same people who own the uber-nice Borgata in AC) and looks very nice.  The Four Winds advertises in Chicago all the time.  The poker room in Lansing is at a bar called Tripper’s.

I get to Tripper’s on Wednesday night in time for the $50 hold em tourney.  I get to the final table and bust out in 7th (they paid 4 spots).  Oh well.  I play cash for 3 hours or so and end up with $2 more than I started.  Oh well, that’s entertainment.  Tripper’s is one of many local spots to play cards.  Apparently they have a poker room at the Days Inn.  They have a place called Club on the River (clever name) and a couple other places.  Tripper’s is #2 in niceness according to the locals.  As with a lot of places like this, it is populated by just locals and they are mostly decent players.  Though the college town does make for a little more action than most locals-only poker rooms.

On the way home, I stop for 2 hours (just to avoid Chicago rush hour) at the Four Winds.  First off, this casino is very nice for being in the middle of nowhere.  The poker room, which is in the back corner, is the biggest all-electronic poker room in the world (according to the floor woman).  They have around 25 PokerTech tables.  This day two of them were full playing $.50/1 NLHE.  I sat with another group of regulars who were all very friendly and ground out a $200 profit in my short stay.  I had some fun insulting the regulars who did their best to pretend they didn’t play that often, while the waitress asked about their families and they recounted stories of tournaments from weeks past.

Tangent: I’m finding that I can’t stop myself from making fun of anyone at the low-stakes cash tables I play at who wear sunglasses at the table.  My favorite line is something like “man, do you think we could get them to turn down the lights in here, my eyes are killing me.  Oh, it probably isn’t bothering you with those sunglasses on.”  $1/2 is not the WSOP main event.  Sunglasses make you look like you’re trying too hard.

Anyway, I’ve been playing and playing and my results are the same.  I’m a consistent winner live and small loser online.  I can’t seem to become a winning online player.  I’m not sure what I do wrong.  I’m afraid that it might be that the stakes don’t matter enough to me, but I’m not going to play much higher online unless I can consistently eek out a profit.

This time I was in Portland, Oregon on business.

As is my custom these days, I checked the very handy site thepokeratlas.com and look up poker in Oregon.  There appears to be a casino that deals poker somewhere on the coast of Oregon, about 40 miles west of Beaverton (where I’m staying) as the crow flies.

I’m confused because my new TomTom GPS says that there are closer casinos in Washington, but when I check the websites for them, they only deal limit hold ‘em.  One deals a unique $4/$40 spread limit game, which is interesting.  But I like my no limit, so I hop in the car after dinner one night and punch up the Spirit Mountain Casino.  After I pull out, I realize that the thing says it is going to be a 90 minute drive.  I have my reservations about making that commitment at 7:30 at night, but I don’t have anything to do the next day except catch a plane at 1 PM…so off I go.

The poker room’s 15 or so tables are pretty full.  They are running a tournament and have several limit and no limit games going.  After a very short wait I sit at a table with 5 grayed gentlemen, 2 young Asian guys and a young Asian girl, Tiffany.  Most everyone at the table seems to know each other.

The casino is running a promotion, paying out any hand that’s a full house or better.  I start with some tight-aggressive play.  I’ve played only a few hands, most of them pairs 77 or up.  Mostly raising before the flop and taking down the flop with standard continuation bets.  At the point I get to this hand, I haven’t shown down a hand and I’ve been through about three revolutions of the table.

In this hand, there have been 3 limpers in the pot and I’ve got 33 on the button.  I figure I’ll steal the pot with a raise and raise it up to $10.  Tiffany, in the BB, calls as does one of the limpers.  The pot is $35ish and the flop comes 39Q rainbow.  I stifle the urge to jump out of my seat.  Both players check around to me and I bet out $25.  I’m ecstatic when Tiffany goes all in for about $80 more.  The limper folds and I immediately call.  When the turn comes another 3, I’m ecstatic because it means that I’ll get another $100 above the pot for my quads.  I didn’t make Tiffany show her hand…she muks face down.

Later on we’re joined by a very bad middle aged polish player.  He’ll call down to the river with middle pair.  He invariably thinks every big bet is a bluff and will call an overbet on the river if he has top pair or better.  I make a mental note and end up punishing him several times–twice with pocket jacks (once when I flopped a set and stacked him off when his KT paired the ten and the other time when he hit top pair on an 9-high board and I took most of his stack).

Strangely, the hand I’m most proud of is one I lost.  I suppose could have played it better, but I also could have lost a lot more.  I moved around the table and I have Tiffany on my immediate right.  She’s a loose aggressive and she’s playing a lot of pots.  She’s smart and times her aggression well.  Apart from when she lost to my quads, she hasn’t lost a big pot.  This time she limps UTG+1 and I raise her to $12 with TT.  I get a call from the button and Tiffany calls.  The flop comes 773 with two diamonds.  She checks and I bet out $28.  The button folds and she flat calls.  The turn comes bringing another 7.  Now I’m only behind if she limp-called with jacks, queens, kings or aces.  I think she might be that kind of player, but I really think I’m ahead.  She bets out $40.  I’m confused about this bet, but am still convinced that this is just a move.  I should have raised, but I decide to call and re-evaluate on the river.  The river comes A with no flush possible.  She bets out $50 into a pot that is about $150.  I think my turn call has communicated that I think I have a good hand so this bet looks very fishy to me.  I decide that she has something like A9, AT or AJ and the river just gave her a hand.  I fold my full house face up and she shows her AQ.  The table actually gasped and the dealer called the floor over because he thinks I’ll still get the $50 bonus.  The first floor person thought so too, but the floor manager decided that since I folded I didn’t get it.  I didn’t think I would.  I’m pleased because I’m not sure when I got to the point where I could ever fold a full house (on 2+2, I believe the Zeebo theorem say that no one folds a full house).  I’m pleased because I read the situation just about perfectly the whole way (except that I was afraid to raise the turn).

I left for the night up around $500 at about 2:30 AM.  Thank God for late checkout.

So, a while back I described how I was playing in a heads up tournament with some people from the 2+2 micro limit full ring forums.  Well, I was knocked out in the quarter finals.  But, I’m proud to say that I was knocked out by the eventual winner (speedle, who basically pwn3d everyone in the field).  I also made a 350% return on my huge ($10) investment, so I’ve got that going for me.

Sa-weet!

Last year around this time, while I was still in my play money poker phase, a co-worker invited me to a poker party.  Brent had a friend from a past job, who lived across the street from Howard, who held a party once a year. According to Howard, it is a party first and a poker tournament second.  That’s true.  He makes sure a lot of people go home with money.  The buy in is just $55 and he provides food and liquor and all the chips and tables.  He has a raffle and last year he even had a masseuse (who gave free backrubs).  It’s a great night.

For a small world feel.  Howard married the sister of the girl I took to senior prom.  There were a bunch of people there from my high school and it was very fun.

Last year I busted out of the tournament around the middle of the field.  It was very uncomfortable.  I didn’t know what I was doing and I got killed.  I played at one of the loser’s tables and ended up chopping for first and went home with a little more money in my pocket than when I got there.  Bottom line: I played like someone who played play money poker a lot and didn’t really know what he was doing.

I was excited to go back.  It would be an interesting test of whether I’ve gotten any better.

On my first table, I was the captain.  By accident.  I resolved to play tight for the first part of the night.  Only my first hand was QQ.  My second was AQo, then KK, then AJs, then AQo, then 99, then AQo again.  People wanted to limp.  I kept raising it up.  I was raising close to 3X the BB plus 1BB for every limper.  If someone min-raised, I counted that as 2 limpers.  Then I’d vary it just a little.  It wasn’t making me very popular.  It was great to have the loose table image.  I raised a ton for the first 45 mintues and then folded almost everything I had for the next hour, but my image held strong.  They made it very clear that I still had my image.  I got great action for all my hands.  Apart from that, I came up with profiles for every player at the table and determined how to play against each of them.  I busted out two of them and by the third hour of the tournament I was in the top three of chips.  I held strong for a long time.

Unfortunately, I ended up at a table with Howard himself.  Howard knows how to play aggressive.  He was pushing the action hard.  Unfortunately I ended up making a few moves at bad times and ran into Howard.  He ended up with about half of my stack.  I did end up at the final table and cashed, but finished 6th or 7th.

Afterwards, I went to find out if any of the losers tables were playing.  There was one player sitting at one.  Howard reserves $60 from the buy-ins for three losers tables to have $20 prizes each.  There was $20 and 1 player at the table.  I asked if he wanted to play heads up and we agreed to play 1/2 with 20 chip stacks.  As we counted out the chips, 3 players joined us.  We all pitched in another $5 so the winner would take $45.  We had 3 players who were playing tight and trying to keep their stacks and then 2 of us knew that with just 10 big blinds it was pretty much shove or fold.  I decided to gamble a lot.  I was up to 50 chips and then back down to 4 chips then up and down and up and down.  Eventually I got heads up with a nitty girl.  I was still screwing around and playing for fun.  Then she said something like “I’m really good, I’m pretty sure I’m gonna’ beat you.”  She didn’t seem to be kidding, so I decided I needed to crush her.  I played a solid heads up game and pushed her around a lot.  I pushed all my chips in a lot.  I raised every pot.  If she called pre-flop and bet on the flop I folded.  She had no idea how to trap.  It was fun (and pretty easy).

In the end I ended up more than doubling my entry fee and having a great time.

But the real bottom line: I’m much much much better than just a year ago.  I was totally comfortable the whole time.  I knew what to do and when to do it.  I made good bluffs and good calls and good laydowns.  I love friendly games because people show you when you’ve made good laydowns.  I knew how to read people and I knew how to maximize my profits from people’s mistakes.  I did make a couple of bad moves, but you have to make some moves and they won’t always work.

Poker Stars, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 8 Players
Hand History Converter by Stoxpoker

BB: $4.90 (19.6 bb)

UTG+1: $33.75 (135 bb)

MP1: $24.25 (97 bb)

MP2: $5.30 (21.2 bb)

MP3: $63.20 (252.8 bb)

CO: $10.25 (41 bb)

BTN: $28.25 (113 bb)

Hero (SB): $24.75 (99 bb)

Pre-Flop: Hero is SB with A K

UTG+1 raises to $0.50, 2 folds, MP3 raises to $1.75, 2 folds, Hero raises to $5.50, BB folds, UTG+1 calls $5, MP3 calls $3.75

Flop: ($16.75) T 2 A (3 players)

Hero bets $19.25 and is all-in, UTG+1 calls $19.25, MP3 calls $19.25

Turn: ($74.50) 2 (3 players, 1 is all-in)

UTG+1 checks, MP3 bets $10, UTG+1 calls $9 and is all-in

River: ($92.50) 3 (3 players, 2 are all-in)

Results: $92.50 pot ($3 rake)

UTG+1 showed K K (two pairs, Kings and Twos) and lost (-$33.75 net)

MP3 showed Q A (two pairs, Aces and Twos) and won $18 (-$15.75 net)

Hero showed A K (two pairs, Aces and Twos) and won $71.50 ($46.75 net)

After work tonight, a friend and I made the trek to Hammond Indiana to play in the newly renovated Horseshoe Casino.  They opened on 8/8.  The whole casino is beautiful.  My buddy says it is like Vegas.  Having never been to Vegas, I don’t really know.

The poker room is beautiful.  The most amazing poker room I’ve been to.  Not that there’s a high bar.  Previous to this, the poker room at the Stampede Casino in Calgary was the nicest I’d visited.  This one was much nicer.  Very high ceilings, wood everywhere, nice tables, nice carpet, nice chairs, very good dealers.  They have a high stakes area that apparently deals $5/10 NL and $20/40 FL.  They also have a separate room for the $100/200 and $200/400 game.

They had roughly 35 tables running tonight (on a Thursday).  The wait wasn’t more than 15 minutes for any stake.  Everything was run very professionally and smoothly.  And to top it off, they were offering a bonus of $500 to anyone who caught quads, $1000 to any straight flush and $1500 to any royal.  Throughout the night you’d hear a table shouting about hitting quads.

I started the night at $1/2 NL.  I played well and ran my $200 up to $330ish…but then back down to $230ish by calling down some bad players who would bet 10% of the pot into my drawing hand.  I’d miss my draw and end up paying them $20 for their top pair, two pair or set that they were massively underbetting.

After dinner we put our names back on the 1/2 list, but there was a 15 minute wait.  Just outside the poker room they have two PokerTek PokerPro tables.  If you haven’t heard about these yet, they are definitely worth a peek.  They are basically fully-computer-driven live poker tables.  Its basically like playing on the internet, but you can see the other players.  The best part is that they seem to draw bad players.  At the Horseshoe they have them spreading $.50/1 NLHE.  We sat down to just screw around until our names got called (they must have eventually called our names, but we never heard them).  I played my online game there.  I was basically playing tight and aggressive.  I raised in position, but took some advantage of the table’s propensity to limp.  I picked good spots to bluff, but mostly showed down very good hands.  In about 1 1/2 hours at the tables I had run my $50 buy-in (I bought in low because practically everyone at the table was playing $20-30 stacks) up to $450.  The next player behind me had about $200.  Everything I did was working.  I was flopping great, but making bets that would get called or pushing people out when I wanted them out.  I stacked other players around 8 times, $25-40 at a time.  I folded when I was behind.  I think my showdown win percentage was probably like 80%.  It was sick.

Playing that well and winning that much is great.  It felt good to have my play rewarded.

When I felt like I was getting bored and that some players were “targeting” me, I got up.  I figure an 800% return on my investment was good enough for me.

I went back into the live room and sat down at a 1/2 NLHE table.  This table seemed to be full of some semi-loose regulars.  The play was good and I felt like I was probably one of the worst players at the table.  In order to combat that, I decided that tighter and more aggressive was the order of the day.  I bet I played 8/6/3 at this table.  It seems to me that this style works for the semi-loose casual regular live 1/2 game.  Why?  Because they want to play.  They don’t respect a $10 PF raise, even if you’ve folded every hand for 3 orbits.  Because they are winning a lot of hands with top and middle pair, they don’t worry when you make a c-bet of 2/3 the pot.  So if you’re lucky enough to flop a set, you’re probably going to get paid.  I don’t think slowplaying is a good idea at these tables either.  It seems like if you bet, you’re likely going to get some action.

So here’s the big hand of the night.

On the button with Ah 9h.  Four limpers.  I raise to $10.  (This is seriously the first hand I have played in 3 orbits.  I’ve been card dead.)   Seat 1 calls and Seat 4 calls.  Flop comes 9d 7d 9c.  Seat 1 checks, seat 4 checks, I bet out $22.  Seat 1 calls, seat 4 goes all in for $90ish.  I snap call.  Seat 1 surprises me with a raise…he is all-in for about $40 more.  I obviously can’t fold, but I am a bit nervous.  Did another player keep 79?  One of these guys certainly has the flush draw, am I about to get rivered?

Seat 1 flips over 77.  He has a full house.  Crap!

Seat 4 flips over 2c 9c.  He can only win with a 2.

Then, the turn comes A.  I made a better full house!

Then, as if to add some insult to injury, the river is another A.  I make aces full of 9s (instead of my winning 9s full of aces).  I scoop the pot for a net profit of around $200.  I play a couple more orbits, but I’m really done.  I win a hand or two more, getting a little more credit for my bets than I should.

I have a 1 hour+ drive home and it is around 12:15.  So I cash out.  I’m up over $650 for the night.  After the first orbit I played, I was never down all night.  This was easily the best session of poker I’ve played so far.

Can I say that I feel proud of how I played?  I think this is the good kind of pride.  I played well and disciplined and it worked.  It feels good.

Back to the Lake of the Torches for another few rounds at the cash game.  I get to see many of my friends again: Stephanie, Phyllis, Dean, Greg and Frank.  Who?!?  Just the LotT poker regulars there to take tourist money slowly but surely with their very tight, mostly aggressive brand of poker.

Except this night we have Chad at the table.  Chad is kind of crazy.  He likes to raise with anything.  He’ll raise with anything between king-high and the nut flush.  He won’t fold on the flop to any bet if he has at least middle pair.  So Chad has slowed down some of the regulars even further.

So tonight has become the night of the limped family pot.  Besides a home tournament with a $2 buy-in, I’ve never seen this kind of family pot action.  Several times I fold marginal hands in early position and I’m the only one not playing.  I turn to Frank a few times and tell him that if I’d known everyone was going to play I would have played too.

This hand was too funny not to share.  I’m in the small blind and the whole table has limped around.  I look down at 2 8 off suit.  I seriously consider folding for just $1 even with $17 already in the pot.  I turn to Frank as I throw in my money “I said I wanted to play too if everyone else was going to,” and loudly tell him “and I’ve got one of the worst possible hands you can have.”

The flop comes 2 6 8 rainbow.  I check.

Greg bets $5 from MP, Chad calls $5 from LP.  I raise to $25.  Chad and Greg both call.

The turn is a blank.  I check and Greg and Chad both check, looking baffled.

The river is a 2 and I just made a full boat on the river with the second worst hand in poker.  I bet $40 and Chad looks over.  I tell him that I’ll probably show him if he folds.  (I hope he thinks that this means that I want him to fold).  He thinks for about 2 minutes before calling.

I tell Frank that if that had happened on Full Tilt the comment window would have lit up like Christmas saying “Internet poker is rigged, FT is rigged”.

This actually reinforces my thought that raising pre-flop in a weak game like this one is always a good play from any position if you’re going to play (with some minor exceptions).

I ended the night up a good amount and feeling very good about how I played except one hand where I had QQ and re-raised PF and got 2 callers with a flop of AJT.  I bet it out on the flop and got one caller and then let him take the lead on the turn and river where he extracted even more from me with his ace-weak.

Any time I have a pair of queens it kills me.

Still playing $.10/.25 and it still seems to be working.

Busted out of 4 tournaments though.  In all bit one, I got my money in with the best hand and got beat.  Oh well, it happens.  In the one I lost with top two pair to someone who flopped a set and slow played it.  Not sure how I could have smoked that out.

I’m not sure what.

I moved myself up to the $.10/.25 tables about a week ago.  Why?  I don’t know.  I just always feel more comfortable there.  I feel like people play more “right” at that level than at $.05/.10.  I might be wrong, but at the higher level sometimes a bluff works, people protect good hands, people size their bets, people play less ace-highs like the nuts.  In other words, the players are better, but somehow I feel like that makes me better.  Plus I have no qualms about playing $1/2 live, but then I drop down to $.05/.10 for internet play?  That’s doesn’t make the most sense.

That was change one.  Change two is that I decided to concentrate more on the game.  I try not to let myself get as distracted.  That seems to help a little.

Change three is that I am paying close attention to position.  I had been making some mistakes before based on position that I believe I have corrected.

Change four is that I started protecting my “worse” hands a little more.  If I had AK and the flop came Ks Jh 4s in the past I might have bet 1/2 the pot (which looks a lot like a continuation bet, right?) but I think the better play is to bet out the pot plus or minus a little (for variance) and let the drawers decide if they want to chase for very poor odds.  Sometimes they do on the flop, so if they miss, I fire again on the turn and see if they still want to come.  At this level, they generally decide not to.

Change five is that I’m paying attention to the “story”.  I figured out that part of the reason why my bluffs don’t work is because I pay no attention to the story I’ve told through the hand.  Plus I would imagine that I’ve missed out on some bluffs or value because I wasn’t paying attention to the story I told.  On the other side of the coin, I realized that I was calling river bets when I should have heard the drawing story the whole way.  Not that the story is always true, but I can’t call down every river bet if the story is consistent, right?

All that to say, I had a very good night tonight.  I added 2 BIs to my bankroll, which will help because my online account was pretty far down.  The better news is that I did it by playing well.  I did it by getting my money in with good hands and extracting value from players and playing some trickier hands in position.  I did it by stealing blinds and slow playing bigger hands.  What I didn’t do is suck out to win when I should have lost.  Winning the right way feels a lot better than the alternative.

Get this, I even won $10 with pocket aces.  That never happens for me.  (Between us, I think the rockets are still a money loser for me all considered, but this helps them get some value back.)

I’m reading Harrington on Cash Games again and it is even better this second time.  I think because I have all of these hands running through my head where I made the mistake he’s talking about.  I feel like I’m actually learning this time.

Dan preaches playing “deceptive” hands from time-to-time.  I feel like at these levels people aren’t paying enough attention for it to really matter, but I try to follow Action Dan’s advice infrequently just to see.  Tonight it paid off.

I was in the BB with $25 and 6 8 off suit.  EP makes a min raise to $.50 and the button calls.  There’s now $1.10 in the pot and all I have to do is put $.50 in the pot to see the flop.  In general this is a folding hand, but I hear Dan in my head saying “every once in a while for deception” so I call.  Wouldn’t you know it?  The flop comes 579 rainbow.  I go ahead and bet out $1 and the EP-raiser calls, the button folds (pot is $3.10).  The turn comes J, which I don’t like, but I do feel like I probably still have the best hand.  I bet $2.50 and my friend goes ahead and pushes all in for another $6 or so.  I don’t have to think too hard before I call.  He turns over 77 for a set and I cross my finger the board doesn’t pair.  Can’t remember the river card because it didn’t change anything and I scoop a very nice pot thanks to Mr. Harrington.  Thanks, Dan.

Those are just the highlights.  I had many other good hands including (if I may say so) some well-timed and executed bluffs and some sweetly played value bets.

I hope this is no coincidence because I believe that this is how things should mostly go for me.  I swear I’m not as bad as my results would indicate.  We’ll see.