Manipulate Emotions to Your Advantage; PLO is Crazy

So, since AA is back, I've revived my focus on poker. I played both days this past weekend, and am planning to play tomorrow as well. Finally, I've started to catch cards and be able to trap the donks who don't have a clue what's happening.

Saturday, I was sitting at a very strange calling station $1-2NLH table in seat 10. Some were aggressive, some were passive. Some played strict HOH poker. To my right was a VERY aggressive player; apparently a player who had just moved from California. All at the table were convinced that she was a donk, but after careful analysis, it seems to me that she is a very strong player who was not afraid to gamble. She could bet people off decent hands, play marginal hands very well, etc. Anyway, I hadn't posted yet since the blinds were 2 away from me, so I was watching a hand between her and the HOH player. He PFRed to like $15 and she called. Flop came junk (unbenounced to me and most of us, the flop have a gut shot straight drwa). HOH made a pot sized bet, she called. The turn, as we later found out, completed the gut shot straight. HOH bet, she pushed all in, HOH called. They don't show yet, but the river comes blank and she doubles through HOH.

So, the HOH guy starts to go off about how she is a crap player because she called a pot sized bet with a straight draw. So, the lady fires about how he was an idiot for calling with an all-in with an overpair. The HOH guy goes completely on tilt, busts out and rebuys a few times. All the while, this lady is just dragging pot after pot with what ended up being the best hands. It seemed that many people were trying to attack her/her stack and she could capitalize... all because of that one gut shot. She actually hit a few more gut shots, and when I say few, I mean more than 2. She also did a very good job of protecting her stack. She picked the right times to gamble. At the end of the day, she was up at least $1800, and the other dude was stuck at least $500.

That night reminded me of a story I heard about a poker player.. I think I read it in a magazine. Basically it goes: "While sitting at a very tight table, a very weak loose-aggressive player sat down. He played every hand, but not only did he play every hand, he RAISED every hand. He won a lot of pots with crap cards. So, we all tried to bust him, but his cards kept holding up. He made a lot of money off us and then left. The rest of us sat there and talked about how how bad of a player he was. Later on, after leaving the casino, I analyzed his play. Being that aggressive, he knew that people would try to bust him with 'good' hands. He played accordingly, and knew when he was beat. He wasn't the bad player after all; he was the best player at the table, and we were the bad ones for trying to pick on one player versus playing our game."

To update you all on how I did, I got up a few hundred. I could never coax that lady into a pot with me. Seems like she would always fold when I showed aggression. I did, however, also change up my play. I pushed a few more marginal hands, started to straddle-with-mandatory-reraise a lot. Didn't get a lot of action at first, but would eventually get action... lots of action. Many times much more than I wanted. I remember having AKos anf PRF UTG to $20. I got 6 callers. Flop came middle cards, and I CBET about $40. 2 folds I believe, and one re-raises to $100. 1 calls, folds to me, and I of course have to fold. Crazy. But I was early, so maybe that dude hit a set or something. I didn't sweat it. Those actions/folds gave me action later in the game... profitable action. I saw people winning pots all night with 5 high flushes, so I would limp with Ax suited and bust people. It's nice to catch cards. They couldn't even see it coming.

Ok, one last word about this session. If there are any poker newbies reading this, do NOT bring friends to watch you play poker if it's your first time ever on a table. Doing this essentially labels you as "FREE MONEY." There was this guy who sat down in the 3-4 seat with like $200. Not unusual, but what was unusual was that he had 2 buddies, who weren't on lists just sit back and watch. They weren't even on the rail. I told AA that it was the first time in a LONG time that I felt like a shark on the table. The look on his face just said "Please sir, take my money." Sure enough, after about 3 orbits, he was busted. So if it's your first time, just don't say anything to anyone, k? It'll save you money.

Sunday's session was 1 hand on a $1-2NLH table, a $45 single table SNG, and about 4 hours of $1-2PLO. Our PLO table was stacked! 2 WSOP winners, 3 high limit cash game players, 1 strictly PLO player (who has probably played the big game), one of the Russians, and AA and myself. Play was CRAAAZZZYY. It was nothing to see $300-$600 pot bets get called. They just kept digging into their pockets, pulling out $100 chips, pumpkins, or cash, and kept going. AA and I were just trying to catch hands. Unfortunately for AA, he was still card dead from 4 months ago. I did ok. I pulled a few small-medium pots, but got one big beat on the river for all of my winnings from the night before.

I don't remember any notable hands, but I did feel very comfortable and competitive on the PLO in comparison to the last few times I played. Hopefully, they'll keep spreading the game. I wish they could spread a low limit Omaha high-low game also. That'd be fun.

I think tomorrow I'm going to try to get them to spread a $5-$10 HOSE table. We'll see.