The week in reivew

Last week I wrote about my trip to the Hard Rock casino and the rather poor results. I've been reflecting on that experience and have concluded it was just one of those sessions. One big loss due to somebody making a ridiculous pre-flop call and then getting lucky. Most of the rest of the time I just wasn't getting any cards. It happens. No reason to get discouraged about it.

I played a bit more on The Quest and am up $13 on the week. It may not sound like much, but when you consider that's a 12% increase in the bankroll, it's not bad at all.

I probably shouldn't get too excited since the vast majority of it came from one hand. It was one of those right place, right time, right opponents kind of things. I'm UTG with AQs. The guy in the cutoff has been playing extremely loose and aggressive. I've noticed that almost without fail when there are limpers ahead of him he'll put in a big raise. Of course, I want to raise here, but I figure I'll let him do my raising for me. I call, one fold, then the LAG, just as expected, raises to 5BB. The button calls, two folds, then I call.

The flop brings J97 with two of my suit. Figuring the LAG will again bet for me, I check. He does, though his almost pot-sized bet was a bit more than I would have liked. The button calls. I'm getting slightly more than 3-to-1 from the pot so I make the call. (I probably would have made the call even if I wasn't getting the right odds since I'm likely to stack one or both of my opponents if I hit.)

The turn is my card, the 6 of clubs. This couldn't be better. The board is now J high, so an overpair might still think he's good, and there are obvious lesser flushes, and a ton of straight draws. Sticking with my plan of letting others do my betting, I check. The LAG bets about half of what he has left, which is actually a rather small bet into this pot. The button calls. I figure one or both of the other guys will probably call a small raise here, so I make it a little more than double the original bet. The LAG calls for the rest of his stack. As you'll see in a minute, this makes absolutely no sense. The button also calls. We now have a $10 pot and the button still has $3.65 left. I have him covered.

The river makes things even more interesting. The 4 of clubs brings lots more lesser flushes into play and adds even more straight opportunities, though anyone playing those with four clubs on the board is an idiot. I decide not to be coy and just push in my whole stack. The button calls and sadly (for him) turns over the penultinuts. He had KK from the start, with one of them a club.

The LAG turns over ATo, with no clubs. As I said before, this makes his turn call of my raise look very stupid. He's got nothing but a gutshot draw, and even that is likely (and in reality is) drawing dead. If this was a tournament I might understand, but this is a ring game. When you know you're beat, it's time to fold, no matter how much you have invested.

A very nice $18 pot (at $0.02/$0.05 NL!) for a $9.73 profit. Not bad at all.

Two things struck me during the play of this hand and reflecting back on it later. First, the button played it poorly. He was in good position to (re-)raise both before the flop and on the flop. If he'd done either, I'd have probably gotten out and he'd have won the hand. This is $0.02/$0.05, so it's not reasonable to expect stellar play. I just point out the error for educational purposes.

Second, and this may tie into the first point as well, I realized after the fact that if I had been playing more than two tables it's quite likely I might have overlooked the tendencies of the LAG. PokerTracker would certainly have displayed the guy's 87% VP$IP and let me know he liked to play essentially every hand, and the other stats would have told me he was aggressive, but it's unlikely I'd have had time to dig through the stats to find his %PFR with limpers ahead of him, if there even is such a stat. That I had noticed his tendency allowed me to use it to my great advantage and completely disguise the strength of my hand. I don't recall how long the button had been sitting at the table or have any idea if he was playing multiple tables, but he's either very passive or was concerned that the LAG's pre-flop raise might indicate aces. If he'd been paying attention, he'd know the LAG's pre-flop raise indicated nothing about the strength of his hand.

Other sessions during the week were far less noteworthy. In fact, they added up to just about zero. One table accounted for the whole profit for the week.

I'm still learning about the new PokerTracker and what it can do. In the Reports section they have a sample "Fish List" report. Is it a bad sign that I show up on the fish list?