Category: Poker

After taking advantage of a PokerStars deposit bonus of a measley 15% back in February, I basically ran through my bank, leaving me with a dollar or so. It’s enough to play at the nickel or penny tables, but seriously, that’s a freaking waste of time. I’ll go back from time to time for the freeroll or frequent player point tourneys to get some NL practice in, but I don’t think I’ll be doing much more than that.

Ten days ago I bought in for $50 at PartyPoker. Party rocks. If you play well, you’ll catch lots of wins against the fish. 6 days later I had doubled up and cashed out my initial $50. Nice. Nothing better than playing with Other People’s Money.

A couple days ago I switched over to the 1/2 tables from the .50/1 tables. It’s more expensive, but provided I play well enough to minimize my losses and win enough medium and big pots, I tend to come out on top. I’ve gotten some great hands: Royal Flush, four Kings (twice), Aces full of eights, etc. Gotten some good winning flops, too.

Today I started with $122 in the bank. I ended the day with $155 (low – $100, high – $175). I cashed out $50 to Neteller (by accident) and another $50 to my bank account. I’d prefer to have $100 in my bank on Party, but I can wait for a promotion to give me a little extra. Actually, a friend of mine was watching me play earlier and liked what he saw. He may put in some real money and get me a referral bonus.

But even with all this money floating around, I’m still down $150 since June. $250 of all money I’ve spent was wasted on PokerStars, so that’s not too bad. Now that school’s back in session and I’m hip-deep in work, I think I’ll cut back on my play a bit. Hopefully I can keep up this run when I do play and get into the black overall. I have some poker purchases I want to make with my poker money: Books, software, etc.

Today I lost 50 bucks or so at Hollywood Park playing at the $2 table. I played my hands right, but I didn’t get enough good hands, and there were callers who would outdraw me with weak(er) cards. Pocket Aces, pocket Queens. Ugh.

It could have been worse: at one point I was down more than 90, and managed to score two big pots and one small pot in the space of 5 hands. That made for a pretty good comeback.

Anyway, my point is that maybe it’s not a good idea to play at a table where you can lose your stack if you have 5 good hands that get outdrawn by some idiots and the house takes $3 a pot.

On another note, I won another few dollars at Empire, putting me decidedly in the black. One pot was won with a full boat, 9’s full of 8’s (I had pocket 9’s). Another I took after the flop with a pair of Kings, flop showing a pair of 2’s and an Ace. Pre-flop betting was capped with two callers, so the pot was decent, especially for a hand that had the potential of going disastrously wrong (e.g., someone making a boat with a lower pocket pair).

So maybe .50/1 with a .50 rake for every $5 is more my game.

Started off well. Won about $5 and made my $12.50 bonus on for playing 61 hands.

Then I started playing terribly and was down nearly $30.

Tightened up my play and started raising when appropriate and now I’m up nearly $25.

I’m folding lots of hands I would have called before, like AXo (where X is lower than 8 or 9). Even suited I’ll toss these hands half the time (though I just called on A2s; I should have raised or folded).

Let’s see if I can keep this up.

3:30 AM Update

Yeesh. I don’t know what happened, but I was down by quite a bit. Maybe $35. I played smarter and made back $25 of it. Still above my initial deposit, so I’m glad of that.

My last win was pretty big, mostly because it was really close:

Seat 7: Phil
Seat 9 is the button
Seat 10 posts small blind (0.25)
Seat 1 posts big blind (0.50)

** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Seat 2 [ Qd Ad ]
Dealt to Phil [ Ac Kd ]
Dealt to Seat 10 [ Kc Jc ]
Seat 2 calls (0.50)
Seat 3 folds.
Seat 4 calls (0.50)
Seat 5 calls (0.50)
Seat 6 folds.
Phil raises (1) to 1
Seat 9 calls (1)
Seat 10 folds.
Seat 1 folds.
Seat 2 raises (1) to 1.50
Seat 4 calls (1)
Seat 5 calls (1)
Phil calls (0.50) <<< should have raised here
Seat 9 calls (0.50)

** Dealing Flop ** : [ Qh, 4c, 5h ]
Seat 2 bets (0.50)
Seat 4 calls (0.50)
Seat 5 raises (1) to 1
Phil calls (1)
Seat 9 calls (1)
Seat 2 raises (1) to 1.50
Seat 4 folds.
Seat 5 calls (0.50)
Phil calls (0.50)
Seat 9 calls (0.50)

** Dealing Turn ** : [ Ks ]
Seat 2 bets (1)
Seat 5 calls (1)
Phil calls (1)
Seat 9 calls (1)

** Dealing River ** : [ 2d ]
Seat 2 bets (1)
Seat 5 folds.
Phil calls (1)
Seat 9 calls (1)

** Summary **
Main Pot: $20.75 | Rake: $1
Board: [ Qh 4c 5h Ks 2d ]
Seat 1 lost $0.50 (folded)
Seat 2 lost $5 [ Qd Ad ] [ a pair of queens — Ad,Ks,Qd,Qh,5h ]
Seat 3 didn’t bet (folded)
Seat 4 lost $2 (folded)
Seat 5 lost $4 (folded)
Seat 6 didn’t bet (folded)
Phil bet $5, collected $20.75, net +$15.75 [ Ac Kd ] [ a pair of kings with ace kicker — Ac,Kd,Ks,Qh,5h Ac(kicker card) ]
Seat 9 lost $5 [ Kc Jc ] [ a pair of kings — Kc,Ks,Qh,Jc,5h ]
Seat 10 lost $0.25 (folded)

It’s kinda lame winning with KK, but then again, my hand was favored over the other two, so I’m okay with that. I wonder if I should have been more aggressive when that king showed up. At that point I had top pair and a nice kicker. I guess I was freaked about the possibility of pocket queens. More importantly, I should have raised before the flop again to try to weed out the weaker hands. I wonder what seats 4 and 5 had that made them spend a few dollars each on that hand…

Er, later today, I mean. Playing With the Fish

Thanks, Iggy.

So here it is. Playing at a low stakes table is almost not worth your time. Playing at a high stakes table can be bad for your bank account. Hmm.