NL40 Tonight, I was glad to play - i've been a little busy lately, was in toronto for a couple of days so didn't have the opportunity to play any poker.

Started out the night absolutely horribly. Its a max buy-in of $40 and at the worst I was stuck for 135, which is pretty big for me. I was running soo bad, I was bad-beated out of a bunch of pots, I made a bunch of runs at bluffs and literally none of them worked out.

I was in great position at the table tonight, the monster chipleader was directly on my right. He flopped a couple str8s, sets and flushes to get up to around 300$ at one point in the night. On my left was a tight ABC player who has a personal vendetta against me, he puts so many bad beats against me tonight.

I raised a hand on the flop with Q-high/good position and my opponent called with runner gutshot+runner flush. I bet on the turn as well and got called, the river gave him his flush+straight, not a str8flush though. He checked it down expecting me to bet the river but obviously I gave up there. This situation happended to me about 3 times, I'm making good raises into drawing hands w/o anything really but tonight everyone's draws were hitting against me.

I'm not sure what the theory would be for when you have A/K high and are CBetting, if your opponent calls and you can accurately put him on a draw, do you have the heart to value bet in this situation? Is this type of semi-bluff worth it? Actually I'm not sure you'd call it a semi-bluff. I dunno - what's the theory on this kind of play? Would you make this kind of play in tournament vs. cash game? seems more of a cash game trick to me.

I lost 3 preflop all-ins early on:

K-Jo vs. Q-6s
7-7 vs. A-10o
8-8 vs. Q-10s

I was relatively short stacked for most of those situations, these coinflips were a big part of my early loss tonight. All of these situations were me raising short-stacks all-in with what I feel is the best hand. Is this stragegy effective in cash games? Is taking a 60-40 for $30~ pots preflop worth it in cash games?

One other hand where I got stacked, I was on the button with 4-8s in hearts. The big-stacked limped in front of me, at this point my stack was around 50$, I decided to raise the blind to 3$. SB called BB called and limper called. Flop comes 10-A-6 of hearts. It checked around to me and I bet a standard tester bet of $3.50, SB called and limper called. The turn was a 6 and he bet $10. This guy is very ABC occasionally loose preflop so he could have a wide range of hands. There's there's no way he's play a full house like this, he definitley would have check raised a flush in this spot, I was pretty sure I had a good hand and I was hoping he was overplaying Top pair (or a 6.....). Anyways, I pushed all in for another 35~ and he calls - and has 6-Jhearts. Aaaand the river card comes K of hearts giving him a better flush :(

So I rebought a fresh stack of $40 determined to at least double up and play some solid poker. I really felt like I was making great reads on people. Pretty early on I PF raised on the button + took the pot with a Cbet, basically without a hand. Made a couple of these bluffs to work my stack up around 60$.

Picked up A-A on the button and there was a 4$ raise from the big-stack directly on my right - perrrfect position - a couple ways to play this, I could have re-raised here, actually my relative position wasn't very good b/c there were still 3 people left to act after me, but I decided since I was down 95 + the 40 I had invested at the table, I did not want to push and try to get heads up for a small-ish. I just called the flop and 2 other people behind me called. I really did want to play a big pot here, I was willing to gamble a little bit and I was reading the board well enough to know when AA was not good.

FLOP- K-10-5, EP bets $6 and it folded around to me. This guy would not lead out into 4 pple with only a draw, I doubt he'd call PF with K10 in that position, so I gave him some rope and called. He immediately went all-in on the turn for another $30 and I called, he had KJ. He was pretty short stacked so I don't blame him, he was really hammered so there was no way he was getting away from top pair there. $52 profit that hand.

I picked up 7-7 in LP, call 2.50 PF against LAG and about 3 other callers. The flop was K-7-3. It's been a long time since I have flopped a set. I don't remember how I played it, I believe I slowplayed it and he bluffed all-in for his 40-50$ stack and I bigstacked around 165$

About 10-11 hands after that I picked up 10-10 UTG, I made it $5 and in LP somone makes a massive overbet to about 40$, he only had about 30$ behind so he was massively commiting himself to his hand. . This guy only overbets the pot, he'll never make a small-ish raise, so I knew he had a large range of hands he was willing to do with with: AA-77, AK-AQ, KQs, AJs. It folded to me and I thought about this forever, I like TTs and I guess I probably shoulda folded but I called anyways. Flop was 10-8-2 giving me Top Set, I sheepishly check and he goes all-in with JJ. When I saw his hand I felt reaaaaally bad b/c I made a horrible call there. But it was a massive pot.

Not too many more interesting hands, it feels sooo good to be down a couple buy-ins and then come out +130 for the night. I was feeling really good about my play tonight, I got lucky a couple times for really big pots.

I have not played online in a long time, I need to get working on my $25 -> $2500 challenge. I have no idea how long this will take. I have a feeling I might get bored and just deposit so I can at least play .10/.25 - penny stakes will be dull, but it's my mission to work myself up from nothing into a real bankroll, probably for NL100 and maybe attempt satelites for big MTTs. I only like the structure of bigger stacked tournament play, although STT tournaments are going pretty well online too. Meh I'll play more in the upcoming new year.

Live roll is back up around 900 after last week's minor slump.


There is a chance I'll be playing a tournament on saturday for $50, I bet it would probably be at max 10-12 people, but I know everyone pretty well and I have a good feeling that if I go I will be able to take it down.