Did I miss a bet?

3-6 Limit HE w/ KP

Hero sits down a relatively passive full table. A few hands in and this development....

1 limp in EP, 1 limp in MP, Hero raises with AcQc in the CO, SB folds, BB calls, call, call

Flop: Kc Jh 10h

EP bets, call, Hero raises, BB folds, call, call

Turn: 8d

check, Hero bets, fold, call

River: Kh

check, check

So did I miss a bet here?

DonkeyTales - Episode I

So I'm playing at Cliff Castle Casino in Campe Verde, Arizona about a week ago. I sit down at the 3-6 KP table, full of geezers and retirees. It's your typical low limit six-to-a-flop, no-preflop raising bore.

About 20 minutes into my session, El Donkarino Maximus sits down at seat 4. About 10 hands later (of which donkey has played 6-7) and we have our "DonkeyTale".

Donkey limps UTG, MP call, CO call, Hero raises on the button with Ah Qh, BB calls and limpers call.

Flop: Qc Jh 8d

BB checks, Donk bets, MP folds, CO raises, Hero double-bumps, BB folds, Then Donk CAPS, call, call.

So I'm fine with this play so far. I put donk on 9 10 and CO on top pair lower kicker or K 10.

Turn: 6h

Donk checks, CO and hero check behind figuring another CR. Hell give me free card to draw to the nut flush.

River: 4d

Donk checks again, CO and hero check behind. Donk bitterly tosses AA into the muck as CO shows J8o for two pair. Donk whines that his AAs always get cracked.

God I love these tourists. I guess I'll have to get back to writing in this blog now that my online poker habit is waning.

More Losses

Quick rundown of my brief and unsuccessful session at Fort McDowell:

Game: 3-6 w/ Full Kill
Duration: 1.5 Hours
Loss: Full Rack
Losses with: AKs, AKo, & KK

Nothing noteworthy, except I always enjoying watching a moron calling station burn through $250 in the time it takes me to lose 1 bill. I love hearing advice from these people that bet out of turn and plays any hand with paint in an unraised pot. Long term, gotta roll with it.

Big Tent Bloodbath - Collusion?

So my girlfriend (I'll refer to her as Lady J) & I go to the big tent (Casino Arizona) on Friday night for a little 3-6 action and we get sat the same table, which is always awkward. I'm not quite sure how to handle table presence and interaction when playing at the same table as a friend. I'm worried by people assuming collusion.

Situations always arise where I would have been in a pot or taken a hand further had she not been in the pot. Likewise, when I'm in a pot I'm not as aggressive and tend to protect the pot (i.e. call down when I think she has me beat, but to maximize the probability that one of us wins). After all losing money to her isn't really losing money is it? My play definately changes, probably for the worse.

Table conditions were quite good for the game. I was fairly confident that I was the best player and Lady J was the second best player at the table in terms of starting requirements, selective aggression, hand reading, pot odds, and general knowledge. The 9 person table primarily consisted of 5 weak calling stations, 1 weak-maniac, and a weak rock. Pre-flop averaged about 4 players and with about 25% of the pots raised pre-flop.

My bigger hands didn't really holdup or catch well as I lost with AQs/AQo four times and JJ. I played well and the odds played well, so I'm not all to upset.

Bottom Line:
Playing Duration: 2.5 Hrs.
Me P/L: -160 (about 45 going to Lady J)
Lady J P/L: +130

Online Poker Tilting

Ok, so I've determined that I am not a very good online poker player, at least not right now. Most of the time I play limit online, be it 1-2, 2-4, 3-6, or 5-10 I log about 3-4 hours in a row and earn a decent profit, maybe 20 big bets or so. So things are going well at that point. I take a break and start up a new session later that day or the next, and go basically card dead. Because the online environment turns me into an action junkie, I tend to increase either my limit or multi-tabling to compensate for the downtrend in cards. Thus the shrinking of my online bankroll. It's almost like chasing your losses in blackjack by increasing your bet size. This type of behavior only compounds my tilting.

What's interesting is that this never happens to me in the casinos. It's not like I catch some bad beats in 3-6 and then make a table change to the 1-2 NL to make up for my losses or change of luck. Over the long term horizon I'm a break-even/small profit low limit player in the casinos, but a perennial losers online. Another reason for me to stick to the brick casinos.

Humble Beginnings

I've decided to start blogging my poker experiences as a way to a minimize the exposure of my bankroll, i.e., not blow it too quickly.

Now I don't consider myself a great low limit player, but a pretty damn good one. I'm going to find out how to make 3-6 profitable in this bloody desert, one way or another.

I've spent quite some time at the Indian Casinos here in AZ, but it just has not been as profitable as my excursions to Vegas, Laughlin, or Cali Casinos. More to follow...