More poker

Playing some more online poker Saturday. Now that I’m back behind the wheel AC ain’t in the far too distant future but until the arm hardens up a bit, online is still where it’s at. I still need practice with MTTs and my Tilt bankroll could use a little stiffening so I decided to play a deep stack there. Things started looking up fairly quickly when I caught a 6-8 in the BB and the flop hit 6-7-8 rainbow. Led out with a half pot bet to see where I stood and got 3 callers. The turn brought another 8 and I’m doing flips of joy figuring at least one of those callers was drawing to the straight if they weren’t already slow playing it. At one time I would probably have checked that turn giving the chasers a free card hoping to get paid off on the river but getting maximum return on my big hands has been a problem for me, a definite hole in my game, and I have decided to try some different things to try and fix that. Figuring that one of those callers might already have made the straight, and given the tendency of players at this level to chase open enders if the price isn’t too bad I decided to lead out with a bet a tad bigger than my flop bet. This way I pick up a few more chips if the river totally bricks. It worked as I got a caller. The river was beautiful, a 10. I decide if he caught his straight he’s going to have problems letting it go. He’s got to think he’s getting a chop at worst and that maybe his hand might be good if I’m playing a low end straight or if he’s playing a J-9 and has the over card so I pot it. Like a trout to a fly he’s all in and I’m right behind him. He turns over K-9 and I double up.

The next hour I’m up and down between 10 and 15K. Picked up another decent pot when I’m OTB with A-A and I get the player’s dream in that situation, a raise and reraise in front of me. I pot it, first raiser folds and reraiser shoves. I call and the As hold. Gotta love when you can get it in good and get paid. Next hand I pick up As again and again a raise in front of me. This time though the pot bet brings a fold. This guy was a pain in my butt, having a habit of raising oop with marginal hands, forcing me off some hands and sucking out when I actually had something that I could play with. Just couldn’t get a hold on him and it cost me big time a bit later. I was up to about 16K and pulled ppJs. It limps around to me and I raise with one caller, the pain in my butt. Flop comes 9 high with straight and flush draws and I bet out and he calls. The turn bricks and I go pot and he shoves. Warning bells go off but he only has about 2K more and he has been pushing with crap at times so I call and he shows 9-9 for the set. Cost me about half my stack. We go on and I get my stack back up to about 16K again when I spike a small set against A-K and he shoves the A on the flop. Couple of orbits around and I drop a couple of thousand chips in blinds and a failed bet or two. Then Mr. Pain gets generous and decides to give me my chips back and then some. When he shoves his Ts into my Qs and the Qs hold. A few small pots and I’m up to about 30K sitting around tenth or so with about 100 players left of the 600 + that started. Was starting to think I might actually win enough to buy into the Riverchasers game Monday or maybe even the Sunday night game in the BBT when I got smoked.

I get A-Ts, raise and get called by the BB. Flop comes T-8-3 giving me top, top and BB bets about half the pot. He didn’t strike me as the type to bet a set into a preflop raiser so I figured him for either hitting middle pair or having a big A and trying to force me off the pot. I come back with a pot sized bet and he calls. Turn comes a J and he shoves what’s left of his stack, about 4K and I call. He has K-Q for an OESD but hits the Q on the river to suckout and leave me short. He then goes on to boast about have a pair of solid copper ones and then makes a remark about me not being afraid of the overcard and potential flush. Hell, there is already over 32K in the pot at that point and I’ve committed around 16K. I’m going to fold for a 4K bet? By then the 4K made no difference one way or another. I eventually doubled back up but by then the blinds were high enough that I still only had about 10 BBs left and when I shoved my mid pair pre they lost to A-K with the flopped A and I fell a tad short. So much for my adventure on Full Tilt. The site hasn’t been very kind to me lately. AP now has been a much different story but more of that later.

I’m starting to bore myself let alone my loyal reader or two, I mean massive fan base (I’m talking you Hank) so we’ll wrap this one up for now and Thank You all for letting your eyeballs wander around here.