Poker already

The other night I started playing some .10-.20 limit on Cake poker. Not exactly enamored of the Cake interface but it’s a site that my online leagues use so I play it every now and then. Somewhere along the line I must have cashed a league freeroll because a couple of weeks ago, when signing up for a league game, I found 20 bucks sitting there. Thanks to a combination of the live play I had been doing and the funk I had been in I hadn’t played too many league games so who knows how long that money was there. Point is, it was and the other night I was bored and so decided to go looking for a place to play. Decided to check out Cake and found, to my surprise, there were actually some limit games running.

Yes, I know, all you hot shot players look down your nose at limit. It’s NL for hold em and PL for Omaha. Can’t make money at limit. Can’t bet people off their draws in limit, get too many people chasing. Yup, you’re right, got those problems with limit. Of course they are considered problems only because most players view limit poker with a no limit mentality. Limit can be a gold mine if approached the right way, at least at lower levels. The NL mentality combined with the propensity of people not only to chase but to chase bad draws can make it profitable. People think I’m lying when I’ve said I’ve cashed out $500-600 after a night of 2-4 or 3-6 limit but I’ve done it on more than one occasion. It’s not common but it’s happened. A trip to Vegas a few years back I was up $1500 my first two days playing between 2-4 and 4-8 limit and $200 to $300 is not uncommon after a night of 3-6 in AC. I’ve been asked why even play NL if I can do so well playing limit. Hey, I like all the games, except maybe Badugi, and need to keep my hand in. Besides, never said NL was unprofitable. Maybe more on my limit philosophy another time. Back to Cake.

As I said, I saw the limit games and decided, what the hell, let’s see how they are. Was going to sit at a penny table and decided, why bother, if I lose my money here it’s not a great site for me anywho so who cares and went to a .10-.20 table and realized I walked in to a limit player’s dream. There was a character there who raised almost every hand preflop, rarely folding, and who would just keep firing bullets after the flop. No one gets that many good hands which usually means they think they scare people out or they just don’t give a damn. Works for them a lot of times but it also means that you can pull some money in on decent hands and really get paid off on your monsters, which is where it’s at in limit. You need those big pots on monsters to offset those payoffs on the suckouts and these are the kind of people who make sure those big pots are there. Watched the action for awhile and noticed some really weak hands winning on fairly strong boards even though there were pre and post flop raises and very little checking. The one guy was pushing the action and one or two people had caught on to him and would call him down to the river if they caught a pair even if it wasn’t all that big. Many times it was big enough. So I jump in to the action but my luck at the beginning ain’t so hot. I catch a number of hands of the kind I like to play in limit but the flops are unkind and those preflop raises are making the bite a bit bigger than it normally would be. I finally start to catch some cards and now it’s worth playing. Another crazy has sat down and between the two of them willing to bet with nothing and the natural calling stations that gravitate to limit games I wind up over 3 times my buy in. I like this. Returned the next night and did even better since a couple of the same people were sitting at the tables. Looking things over it seems they people are also multi tabling. Considering the way they are playing and the money they are tossing around you would think they would just play a more solid game at better stakes but who am I to argue if they want to hand over their money. It ain’t a whole lot but it will keep me in league buy in games, around 3 or 5 dollars a pop, for a month or so. It was interesting to note that one of the crazies eventually wised up a bit. I started noticing some checks and folds from him, at least the hands I was in, instead of the constant firing. Sat down for a third time later that day but the crazies weren’t there and the table was considerably tighter. Dropped a few bucks there as the cards sucked and there was no one paying off the decent hands and the monsters weren’t bringing the payouts to offset the suckouts. Left fairly quickly as soon as I realized that it wasn’t the kind of table to suit my play. I’m not looking for action the way some of these folks seem to be, I’m just looking for a way to relieve the boredom while adding some funds to the bankroll. Sitting here playing some as I type this. Table not to my total liking but cards are hitting when I play and enough calling stations to keep my head above water so far. Won’t be hard to leave if things go south however. Can’t stay at it too long anyway as have to do some running around shortly.

Well, ran my errands. Left the table after tripling the buy in. Might have stayed longer but one of the places I had to get to closes early today and since I was getting dinner fixins couldn’t afford to get there too late. After 3 days I’ve doubled the bankroll on Cake. Now that I’ve stated that fact I’ll probably donk it all off in the next few days. In regards to donking someone left me a text about a PLO game last night with a possible NLHE table going also. Too bad my phone was on charge and I didn’t see it until I picked it up before I went out today. PLO is always good for donking off some chips and I’ve been dying for some live play. Been 2 months since I’ve hit AC and even longer since we had a local game.

Speaking of poker and Cake in particular, it seems the staff of the poker forum I frequent has voted me to the forum team that plays in the forum wars sponsored by the Gaming Forum Network. It’s a monthly series of 4 games, a freeroll and 3 small buy ins in which the members of GFN put up a team of about 15 players each. In addition to the prizes for the game there are individual prizes for cumulative best showing and the winning forum gets a freeroll for its members. Of course the March games are being played at Power Poker, where I currently have no account and no money. That’s not a big problem as I already said that I would play if I made the team and would sign up if so. The problem with the situation is that Power is part of the Cake network. Problem with networked sites is that everyone has different rules on joining sister sites and no one ever seems to put these rules where they are readily available. Some networks want you to use the same account logon but different screen names. Some do it in reverse. Others tell you to open up brand new accounts from the word go. Of course nothing usually comes of violating these rules except every so often you hear the horror stories of someone hitting big and trying to cash and then find their account locked because they violated the rules by having 2 accounts on the same network. Does make you wonder if there is a reason the network rules are not positioned front and center. They make it sound so easy to sign up and no where, at least in all those sign up instructions, is there any clue as to what to do if you already have an account on the network. Might be buried somewhere in the TOS but that ain’t exactly front and center, more like the fine print. And it is not just the Cake network, it’s most of them. So caveat emptor for those signing on to new sites, check to see if they are part of a network and then find the network rules.

Damn, look at this. Said I wasn’t going to talk as much poker and here I am doing it on my 3rd post back. Of course discussing online poker is a lot easier for me as I can type while playing rather than trying to remember my live sessions after I get back from AC. So we wind up boring you about poker once again and it ain’t really about decent money either. Oh well, Thanks for the listen anyhow.