I hadn't been playing much poker recently. I was laid off from a job several months ago, and I definitely felt like I was playing on scared money while I was unemployed. I also wasn't in a position to leave much money laying around online, I needed it for bills.
I started working again a couple of weeks ago, and in anticipation of my first paycheck I deposited $25 at Ultimatebet. I still had some bonus dollars to earn there, so I figured I would mess around a bit and work through my bonus.
I started off playing very low buy-in NL games, like the $2 max and $10 max, but it was hard to get excited about the games. I actually ended up going against my own advice and playing the $25 buy-in games, where I only had enough of a bankroll for a single buy-in. Normally I'd say that playing NL with only one buy-in is a really bad plan, but I knew that I'd be able to cash in for more soon if I busted.
Since then I've gone on quite a run, and built the $25 up into $150 in about 10 hours. That's a much higher win rate then normal for me -- it's been a combination of luck (I hit a two outer to double up once), getting action on some good hands, and also running into some pretty bad players who I guess needed to give me their chips. Here are a couple of the hands I played that I found entertaining.
In the first hand the table was shorthanded, we were down to 6 players. I am in the big blind with K4o. The first two players fold, and the player in the cuttoff makes the minimum raise to $0.50. I am geting over 3:1 and I call, we are heads up.
The flop comes 454, two spades. I check, he checks. Turn is the Queen of hearts, making a second possible flush draw. I check, he bets the minimum, I call. The river is the eight of diamonds, for a board of 454Q8. I bet $1, about 60% of the pot. He raises to $3. I reraise to $5. He moves in for a total of about $10, I call.
He turns over KK, and then proceeds to bitch about losing to K4. I decide to refrain from pointing out that he didn't make a big enough raise with his Kings preflop. Had he raised to even 3x the big blind it would have been a much tougher call. Once again, evidence that slowplaying big pairs kills.
In the second hand I am in the cutoff with AKo. The table is full, and three players limp in front of me. I raise $1 to $1.25. The small blind calls. Everyone else folds and we are heads up.
The flop comes 4A4, two hearts. He bets $3.50, the size of the pot, and he bets pretty quickly. Many players with a four there would check to the raiser, or at least pause for a second to think over how to play their monster. I don't believe he has a four, I think he probably has a pocket pair (perhaps a big pair), or he may even be semibluffing a flush draw. I think it over and call.
Turn is a 5. He bets the pot again, over $10. I really think over the situation, just because the size of the bet. One thing I have going for me is that he is almost out of chips, he only has $1.75 left after the bet. So, if I do call, I won't be facing an even bigger bet on the river. I finally decide to call, still convinced I have the best hand.
The river is an offsuit 2, making a board of 4A452. Any three makes a straight, but he can only bet $1.75 into a pot of over $30. I call.
He has A8o. I win the pot.
I think the first mistake was calling my preflop raise with A8o. Yes, he already had $0.15 in the pot, but he still had to call $1.10 more. He was getting about 3:1 to call, so I can't completely blame him, but I think he had to at least consider that he might be dominated. I might actually call there if I thought some of the limpers would call, in the hopes that I'd flop two pair or trip eights and bust someone. But I would be ready to get away from the hand if I did not flop something bigger than an Ace.
We both flop Aces and he leads out with a pot-sized bet. Again, I can understand this play -- if I don't have an Ace or a four it will be almost impossible to call. But he didn't need to bet the whole pot, even 60% of the pot would have been enough to give someone the wrong price to draw. And again, I'm the person who raised preflop, if I have a better Ace he is toast.
I call the flop and he pots it again on the turn. This is the move that I simply do not understand. I raised preflop and called his pot-sized bet on the flop. How can he think I'm not ahead of A8 there? It's hard to believe someone would call that bet on the flop if they didn't have a four or a better Ace. I think you have to slow down and take stock of the situation there, especially out of position. You have to ask yourself what kind of hands the other player would have raised with preflop and then called with on that flop.
And what's with leaving yourself $1.75 to bet on the river? Had he moved in on the flop, it would have made my decision a little more difficult. Or had he bet less on the flop, he wouldn't have gotten so committed to the pot and he might have been able to get away from his hand. A bet of $2 on the flop makes a pot of $7.50 on the turn, and then if you feel the need to bet again you can put in $5 or $6.
There are more goofy hands I could share from the last couple of days, but those are two of the better ones. I know this streak can't last forever, but it's fun right now :)
Ted