Bleak to Sunny

I went down to the Muck last night and got into the $30/60 game after a short wait. I started playing around 3:00pm. The game was good. Full of the day regulars, unfortunately most of the day guys are good. You need to wait until the evening shift starts to show for the more recreational and losing players to show up. I started out like I said yesterday vowing to play good poker. I did, but right out of the gate I had nothing to play. I won a few small pots making some moves in position but nothing to write home about. I just started to get blinded away in the game, I was not going to press. I stayed focused, I did not play Q,10 off in middle position this time when it was the best hand I had seen in three orbits. The night shift started to roll in and the game got really good. I had not seen one of the players in maybe two years, but he is ACTION all the way. Of course after being stuck only a few hundred in blinds I finally wake up with a hand on the button. Pocket KK's. There are five people in this pot already and two in for a raise, I three bet and everyone calls including Smiley(Mr. Action). We take off a 6 way pot for three bets($540 in pot). Flop came down 8,Q,6, no suits. Smiley bet right out, there are two calls and I raise. Four of us see the turn for two bets each($780 in pot). Pretty good flop for my hand, some draws to straights but I have to be good right now. Q comes off on turn, Smiley bets right out and two of us make crying calls to the river. Smiley could have had Q, the other guy I put on A high or a 10 which came off on river. Too much in the pot to get away from with these two players. Smiley turns over Q,2 off for the win. BAM, stuck $600. Next orbit around I get pocket QQ's in the BB. Not a great spot, but hey a good hand, there are four of us in for a raise, which I did not make as I am not going to three bet into 3 people out of position as all it does it make the pot larger to draw at and no one would fold anyway for one more bet. Plus I get some added deception if I hit or flop overpair. Flop comes A,K,Q, two diamonds. I check, that was probably my fatal mistake. I know better then to check a pot like that with draws. I wanted deception but not really going to get it with that flop. Of course there is a bet and I check raise, Smiley call two bets cold and the other player dumps his hand. A Jack comes off one the turn, I bet out, Smiley calls. A meaningless card comes on the river and I bet and get called, Smiley shows me 10,7 off for the gutshot straight on the turn that hit. Crap I am now down over almost $900. Smiley then takes all the money from those two pots and continues to play like shit for two more hours and dumps all the money back into the table. I go card dead again and never get any of it back. He goes broke, as I knew he would, and I am stuck $1200 at the low point. There is the Bleak.

I stayed focused and kept on playing the game the way I know I can, the cards have to turn sometime. Maybe not today but sometime. Then it happens. I see pocket AA's on the Button. I have not seen them in a month and maybe 1800 hands. I raise and just get the blinds. Hey I finally saw them and they held up, a moral victory, not a money victory. I then proceed to get pocket KK's three times in about 4 orbits and they all hold up, not for large pots, but for wins. I get back within about $200 and then this hand happens. A little set up is necessary. There were some gamblers at the table, and some tricky good players as well. One of the problems with being tricky good, which I classify as playing lots of starting cards and playing really well after the flop, knowing when to raise with second pairs, when to draw and when to dump to not get hurt too badly is that you may not get the credit you want when you really have a premium hand. I would classify myself as a somewhat tricky player, which can be good but also can be bad when you are running bad and can not get good hands to hold up, or you start to play a little weaker post flop and start to pay off too much with second best hand. I pick up A,J diamonds in early position, I raise, as this is a hand that you do not want to take off in a muti-way pot, and in some instance I will just dump it in early position but I decided to play it here and if you do you MUST raise. I get three bet by a good tricky player. I call. At this point I put him on a number of hands, most likely pocket pair, not likely high because he did not want action, maybe AK but not necessarily, and a random suited connecter like J,10, K,Q or 8,9. I make this play sometimes to isolate a big hand, and this guy was fully capable of making that play or to represent a high pair. A solid tight player you can put on three to four hands maybe AA, KK, QQ and AK. I had A so I ruled out AA. Sometimes the perfect storm happens when you have A and run up against AA when an A flops but if you play scared of that situation you will miss a lot of value bets during a session. The flop came A,8,6 rainbow. I bet right out into him as I wanted to see where I was and how he would react. This is not a spot to check raise. The pot is big enough to win right there, you do not want to price in draws, and if you get three bet you still don't really know where you are if he is still just wanting to be the aggressor. I call still thinking I might be good. A good looking 2 comes off on the turn. I check he bets again. OK, now I am probably in trouble, He may have flopped a set(not super likely) or he has AK, or AQ which I can not beat, and he still may have an underpair to the A. This is where being a tricky aggressive player can get you in trouble. If I can put him only on hands that beat me I most likely dump the turn, but because there are still so many hands that I can put him on that I can beat I have to call. There is $315 in the pot and I am getting 5.25 to one to call. I think it may be 50/50 that I am either beat or good. So I either have 3 outs 50% of the time an 11 to one shot or I am good right now and he is drawing to two outs. I felt 5.25 to one was a good enough price to keep going. I ruled out the set because he still bet the turn and there were not any real draws to protect and there was a chance I would dump my hand to a bet. If I had the set in position I would check to see if I could induce a bluff on the river and still get two bets while not risking the chance I get no more money. We played similar styles so I gave him credit for similar type play to rule out the set. I hit my J on the river and I checked, he bet, and I thought about it for a bit and decided that I had to be good, he had AK, AQ, so I raised. He called and I showed top two which was good. He showed AK, and pissed and moaned about my shitty play. I raked a $615 pot. Back to positive area and off to the races. I held pocket AA two more times, winning small pots, I now know what they look like again. I also continued to play aggressive poker and ran my chips up to a total win of $1,730 for the night. Felt great to book a decent win. Now I just need to follow it up with some more. Hopefully the bad run is over and I will get back to normal for a while. God forbid I actually run lucky for a session. Have not had one of those 50 BB nights in a while. Would like to feel that again.

I would also like to point out that the picture in my Blog of Jason came from Wickedchops Poker. This is killer blog that I found a few weeks ago and have linked up to the left. Go check out this site. It is full of great news and pictures like this one. If you guys are reading this thanks for the picture, and let me know if you want me to let you know in the future if I would like to borrow one again. I would be happy to do that, and I did not mean to piss any one off by posting it in my blog. I just thought it was a great picture of Jason. Talk to you soon...SJ