Thursday, June 21, 2007

Card Dead, but Good Laydowns

First, AA, this question is directed to you: WHY THE HELL DO WE PLAY POKER?!?!?!? :)

For you sports fans who don't get it, AA and I have been absolutely card DEAD in hold'em for the past 6 months. What's worse is that my good hands would get beat. For example, I'd get KK early with one caller; flop comes AQX. I bet and get re-raised. Grrrrr. Showed the kings before I folded, and he flashed his ace. I did get AKd and AJs, preflop raised, and everyone folded, so I'd win an amazing $15.

Here's the best laydown of the night. $1-$2NLH - 8 handed, I'm 3rd to act and get dealt JJ. The guy under the gun raises $10. Action to me, I re-raise to $30. All fold to this one guy, who goes all-in for his last $120. The guy next to him, who is the big stack, calls. All fold to UTG, who also calls (and has roughly $45 left). Action to me again. I go into the tank for a minute, and fold. Eventually, UTG goes all in for his last $45. The big stack calls. The first all in-er and the big stack both had AK unsuited, and UTG had QQ. I was dominated. The river came with an A, so the two split the pot. Easy laydown, but good laydown nonetheless.

I sat on 2 tables last night, and play was SUPER tight. Most of you may know that I'm a pretty tight aggressive player, so being at a tight table wasn't helping my game (especially when getting rags). I need to remember that the best way to play a table is to play the opposite of your players, take more chances, etc. There is this new straddle strategy I need to try sometime soon, though it's pretty expensive.

So, even though I donked off a couple hundred, I feel that I reinforced my confidence in being able to read situations properly. This is the beginning of the comeback, so keep posted for updates!