My laptop is back up and running and I've played 2 sessions of NL25 cash games, although I think I only logged about 300 hands at most, I think in total I am up like $10. I have been playing only 4 tables, but I've been thinking a lot more about my decisions because I haven't played much lately. I've also played 6-max exclusively and I really love it, I can play 27/17 which feels 100% natural for me. I love raising those suited gappers from LP, which you can't do as much in full-ring.

In the first session one of my tables was down to 2 players, but I was up against a standard ABC passive-fish who didn't know how to make value bets. I had AK in the SB, which I was pretty happy about b/c he wasn't playing many hands OOP, but he was overplaying his hands from the button. I raised 5x BB after he limped from the button.

The flop came KJ7 with 2 clubs, I represented a continuation bet and made it about 3$, which he called. I had about $30 in my stack and he only had about 15 left. I checked on the turn after a 9 came up, and he bet $5 so I pushed all-in, he called with K9 and I doubled him up. I sat at that table for a while and eventually busted the fish and ran my stack up to about 65$ after being in for maybe $45 after my re-buys.

The first session would have been great except I lost a big-ish pot with a big draw, I had [9c 5c] OTB and raised PF after no limpers. I flopped a flush draw and I bet, got called. The turn gave me an open-ended str8 draw, my opponent bet-out $1 into about $3 pot, I raised $4 more and he pushed for another $11. It turned out I only had 15 outs and I made the call - not quite getting proper odds - and I didn't hit anyways. He hit a set of 6's on the turn, so I bured most of the session's profits on that hand.

Today I got a new registration # for Poker Tracker so I can actually go through my hand histories (the first session's hands I didn't save on my hard-drive). I was actually really happy with how I played today. I made some sick value bets, but I had one real cooler - the only time I flopped a set today, I had three 4s, I ran into a flopped set of 8s. He didn't need it though b/c it came runner-runner spades, and he had the [8s] to beat me with a flush, luckily he was playing short stacked and I only paid him $15 as opposed to $25 - we were all-in on the flop.

Here is my favorite hand from today:

POKERSTARS GAME #9543413985: HOLD'EM NO LIMIT ($0.10/$0.25) - 2007/04/21 - 22:53:28 (ET)
Table 'Peitho IV' 6-max Seat #4 is the button
Seat 1: justmann40 ($3 in chips)
Seat 2: Valiante82 ($8.25 in chips)
Seat 3: astrodg ($27.40 in chips)
Seat 4: Kb8- ($32 in chips)
Seat 5: Scarfo00 ($67.90 in chips)
Seat 6: Tokuan ($25 in chips)
Scarfo00: posts small blind $0.10
Tokuan: posts big blind $0.25
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to astrodg [3d 5d]
justmann40: folds
Valiante82: calls $0.25
astrodg: raises $1 to $1.25
Kb8-: folds
Scarfo00: calls $1.15
Tokuan: folds
Valiante82: folds
*** FLOP *** [4d 8d 9d]
Scarfo00: bets $1
astrodg: raises $1 to $2
Scarfo00: calls $1
*** TURN *** [4d 8d 9d] [6s]
Scarfo00: checks
astrodg: bets $4.25
Scarfo00: calls $4.25
*** RIVER *** [4d 8d 9d 6s] [As]
Scarfo00: checks
astrodg: bets $8.75
Scarfo00: calls $8.75
*** SHOW DOWN ***
astrodg: shows [3d 5d] (a flush, Nine high)
Scarfo00: shows [Ad Tc] (a pair of Aces)
astrodg collected $31.40 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $33 | Rake $1.60
Board [4d 8d 9d 6s As]
Seat 1: justmann40 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: Valiante82 folded before Flop
Seat 3: astrodg showed [3d 5d] and won ($31.40) with a flush, Nine high
Seat 4: Kb8- (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: Scarfo00 (small blind) showed [Ad Tc] and lost with a pair of Aces
Seat 6: Tokuan (big blind) folded before Flop

My table image was very aggressive, obviously, you can see my PFraise requirements are 5-3 suited from late position - or better :P I thought really hard about how much to raise on the flop and I decided that the best way to represent a shitty hand was to min-raise. If I just called it would look a lot fishier and if I made a bigger raise it would have looked a bit sketchy too. I feel like I got pretty good value from my turn+river bets, I probably could have built a bigger pot if I raised more on the flop because I could have gotten away with a bigger turn raise and maybe even gotten all-in on the river... although I'm still happy with the value I got in this hand.

My second favorite hand of the day:

POKERSTARS GAME #9543240775: HOLD'EM NO LIMIT ($0.10/$0.25) - 2007/04/21 - 22:42:08 (ET)
Table 'Comacina' 6-max Seat #5 is the button
Seat 1: astrodg ($24.85 in chips)
Seat 2: planetpeyton ($16.25 in chips)
Seat 3: Svensonator ($61.20 in chips)
Seat 4: crosse91 ($28.05 in chips)
Seat 5: seanw35 ($38.35 in chips)
Seat 6: eWeet ($50.50 in chips)
eWeet: posts small blind $0.10
astrodg: posts big blind $0.25
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to astrodg [7s 2s]
planetpeyton: calls $0.25
Svensonator: folds
crosse91: folds
seanw35: folds
eWeet: folds
astrodg: checks
*** FLOP *** [7d 4s Qs]
astrodg: checks
planetpeyton: checks
*** TURN *** [7d 4s Qs] [Ks]
astrodg: bets $1
planetpeyton: calls $1
*** RIVER *** [7d 4s Qs Ks] [Kh]
astrodg: bets $6
planetpeyton: calls $6
*** SHOW DOWN ***
astrodg: shows [7s 2s] (a flush, King high)
planetpeyton: mucks hand
astrodg collected $13.90 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $14.60 | Rake $0.70
Board [7d 4s Qs Ks Kh]
Seat 1: astrodg (big blind) showed [7s 2s] and won ($13.90) with a flush, King high
Seat 2: planetpeyton mucked [Kd 5d]
Seat 3: Svensonator folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 4: crosse91 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: seanw35 (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: eWeet (small blind) folded before Flop

Seven-deuce baby. I played the hand kinda weak, but my river bet was sweeeeet.

Okay that's all for now, time to celebrate 4/21 (for me, it's weed-week/weed-month/weed-year)

Peace

The reason I raised preflop with the [5d 3d] was because the person who limped in front of me had a bad habit of limp-folding preflop. I was in LP and had a donkey on my right limping in, looks like a raise to me.