Session 22 & 23

Of all the sessions thus far I was easily put to the most difficult decisions in this one.

I sat for quite a few hours before picking up something to play only to run into a set of 10's after flopping 2 pair and not being able to get away from it. Rebuy.

Card dead for a few more hours and hitting a string of 'second best' hands had me adding on another $100 a little later in the session. I wasn't necessarily running bad, I was just in the fog and couldn't get anything going.

The tables changed about an hour before I left the game. I picked up QJh on the BB. Utg + 3 raised to $12, he was pretty tight player, and a couple more ppl called. Flop came QJ9, and I checked. This isn't my normal line on that type of board but I was willing to gamble it up a bit in this spot and pray that my instincts on UTG+3 betting and getting called was right. He did bet, $50 and got called by the button. I CR'd to $150. UTG+3 tanked for a bit, a good sign for me, and finally moved all in for another $25. The button did a song and dance and called as well.

UTG+3: KK

Button: J10o

They both missed and I scooped a sizeable pot.

A few orbits later a friend of mine joined our table that I really respect. His game is exceptionally good live and online and he has the ability to play almost any 2 cards from most positions. I wasn't looking to stay away from him, but I wasn't looking to mix it up with him with marginal holdings either.

The hand in question has alot of metagame involved in it, and I don't really want to discuss that sort of thing in this blog but lets just say I had been raising alot of buttons, like 90% of them. The big blind picked up on this as she was putting her BB out and made an allusion to "Are you going to raise my BB again" to which I answered "Probably".

The cards were dealt. My friend raised from EP to $12. Folded to me on the button I look down at AdKc. Like I said, I had been raising almost every button and with a hand like this there was no reason to stop here. I raised to $35. The SB, an indian guy that I didn't know that joined from a broken game and had about the same amount in front of him as I did(450-ish), called.

3 saw a flop of, 3c, Kd, 10c.

The indian guy and my friend in EP, checked and I led out for $75 into $105. The indian guy called very quickly so I was pretty sure where he was. My friend then min-raised to $150 all-in and I tanked for at least 1 minute. Again, I'll refrain from this point at blogging about what exactly was going thru my head because it involves past pots I've seen him play and a physical read, but I called with TPTK and wasn't too sure it was the right play. As soon as I said "I call", the indian guy moved all-in behind me which is one of the things I feared in my 'tank'. I had already decided that if he did that I was going to call him as well, so I did and he showed Ac8c for the nut flush draw. The turn brought another K giving me trips and the river blanked. My friend mucked and I scooped a $1000 pot.

I still need to poker stove the hand, I'm not sure how bad the call was there, but I'm pretty sure it may have been.

Again, I hit my stop-win and left when the BB reached me

I headed over to Ameristar to witness the worst players in the poker universe. It took me awhile to pick up a hand, only to get sucked out on for half my stack. I picked up another hand and got sucked out on again. The game was so bad I wasn't even upset about getting rivered twice. I won a few hands here and there by just letting idiots hang themselves and left up when the table broke quickly after.