More of the Same

Yep... call me Mr Predictable... more of the same last night.. The game of choice tonight was two tabling 3/6. It was definitely a tale of two tables... The best of tables, the worst of tables... The first table, I lost almost 2 buyins... The funny thing... yes, funny peculiar... was that everytime that I hit my money card, it was a bigger money card for somebody else.. or at least they had already had the nuts... For example, I hit my flush card on the river which is cool... except when it gives the villian a full house. I hit my straight on the turn... oops.. The villiam flopped a boat. There was another time where I hit my card; but it was a chop as the villian had the same card. I flopped 3 straights and came out with blinds only. That's poker. It was kind of funny as this was happening, I caught myself saying... he who angers me, conquers me.

The other table, on the other hand, just couldn't miss.. and if I made any kind of moves; people were folding. I couldn't have written a better script. I doubled my buy-in (30 SB) there plus a little and closed it down as I was ready to switch gears. I was doing my last lap on the other table and I get 99. This isn't really a "victory lap" as I have been getting hammered so sure, I'll play... Even flopped my set.. but on a scary board... 89J... and sure enough a Q comes on the turn and sure enough I'm getting raised... The board didn't pair on the river and of course our villian held TT to get his straight... A little over kill though as he really only needed one of them.

So instead of me being ahead before I move on, I am now down about $50.. I open another table and continue to play with the goal of getting back over even. Eventually I got there and closed down the 3/6 tables with a small $14 profit. Being on the plus just feels so much better than being down... even if it is $1... it still goes down as "losing" session.

Now, I'm in the mood for some SNGs... Back to Party and open up 3 $55 SNGs... 2 tables are doing pretty good and one table is just not getting it done... One of the good tables, I get AK on the button... 2 limpers so I raise it up and get one caller... Q high flop and I put out a near pot sized bet... MP limper goes all in.. hmmm... after a little thought, I called and he turned over AQ... I certainly didn't put him on that as he didn't raise preflop. I thought it was possible that he had a Q or other pair; but it just felt like a steal... oops bad read.. it happens. No help and I'm more or less out.. I actually go out on the next hand with KT with a K high flop only to lose to AQ again when the Ace comes on the river. A sense of deja vu with the AQs comes back to haunt me (from my 1st SNG challenge).

Things turned around on the bad table and actually ended up winning that one while I came in 2nd on the other one. My KJ lost to a race to 44 to send me packing. So 2 out of 3 ain't bad with a $235 profit.

I was pretty sure that I was done; but after checking my spreadsheet, I only need $13 to put my bankroll over a nice round number... So do I get greedy and play on or just call it a night. Yeah right... back to AP I go... this time 5/10 was the table of choice. Win a few blinds and I can call it a night and the first hand.. that is exactly what I did with 94o.. I called preflop and bet out on a 2JJ board and won $5... OK.. just $8 to go... 98 in the SB.. I MP caller so I'm in a hurry so let's raise it up.. BB calls and so does limper... 69T flop... Of course I lead out and BB calls and limper raises.. Uh oh.. I call.. Q on turn and I check call.. 6 on river and I check fold... KK in BB wins over QT.. boy should have gotten out of that hand earlier... OK, not hurt too bad.. QTo on button same limper as before and I also call... T high flop and I lose again to ATo.. OK, OK.. so I am not going to be gifted this $13... so now I dig in and get ready to grind it out..

Get some of it back 9 hands later when AK flops 2 pair and rivers the boat... no real action though; but did get some of it back... Things went back and forth and finally, I get the rockets... This is either going to be another gut wretching bad beat or a happy ending.. UTG+1 raiser.. nice.. I raise and there are no other callers... and raiser caps it... flop comes 6AK... nice... he check and calls my bet... T on turn and he leads out.. uh oh.. I raise it up and he calls and check calls the river card of 5.. he turned over AK and I take a nice pot. That puts me up $38 for the session and I call it a night... so all in all it was a $297 night as I also got $10 in AP bonus. So again, things went well.

I have been reading a lot about short handed play. It really does seem like the sensible way to go. I, of course, suck at it; but when has that ever stopped me. So a new goal of mine is to study up on this and give it a whirl. My confidence isn't really high that things will work out; but I will give it a shot some time down the road.

Got a new monitor on Sunday. The US Post office actually delievred it on Sunday. She said this time of year, things are really backed up so that they some times deliver "bigger" items on Sunday. My old 21" monitor finally went caput.. I think the lightning strike put the finishing touches on it. I absoultely love this monitor... especially, the wide screen part of it. It is definitely highly recommended. I got a pretty good deal at EBay for this so I'm not complaining too much.