Saturday at Party
I got my “chores” done this morning and hopped on Party for an hour. I am up $5, so I am happy about that. I had an enjoyable game, since I had lots of playable hands. I saw 30% of the flops, playing a few hands I problably should have passed on. About six times I folded a crap hand that flopped trips. Once I folded 74o, two 4s on the flop and another on the turn. It was one of those days where, if I had played 100% of my hands, I would have won 30% of them. It was funny it happened so often.
Pocket Aces cost me a lot today. I called from early position, it can back 3 bet to me and I capped with 4 players in the pot. Flop was Jxx, I bet out, got a raise back and I reraised for 3 bets, 3 players in the pot. The turn is a Q, I bet out, got raised, 3rd player drops, I call. River is a J, I check, expecting a boat at this point, I get raised, the pot is $23 so I call making it $24. The guy had poket Queens, making Queens full of Jacks. After the hand he asked if I had Aces and told me he was folding if the queen hadn’t hit on the turn.
That might be a bad beat story, except I don’t think it was a bad beat. I would have played his hand the same way he did I think, and I am happy with how I played the Aces. The pot was huge, so folding would have been wrong, and once it looked like I could be beat, I slowed down. I might have saved a bet when the Q hit by not beating into him, but it would have cost me if he was holdig KK or TT.
So lets look at that. This guy isn’t a maniac, so he is holding a premium hand. Based on his pre-flop beating, AKs, or JJ+. With a 45J rainbow, I lead off with a raise, since the only thing that has me beat right now is JJ. Now once the Q falls, two out of 5 hands can beat me, and I would tie with another AA. Thats fifty fifty, maybe I should have checked there, calling one bet and saving a dollar. J on the river, I am still fifty fifty for the pot. So it looks like I could have saved a dollar if I gave the hand a little more thought.
That pot cost me $9.50, and at that point I was up almost $20. A little later, poket Queens cost me $4.5. Those were my big loses of the session and I feel that I am getting better. Even playing for 45 minutes earlier in the week, and not catching any cards, I was down $1.50. Thats better than chasing, and getting involved in pots with crap cards. Best of all, I didn’t leave that game frustrated. I played some, didn’t get any cards, and moved on.
Playing in the tournament on the cruise made a big difference in my confidence and helped my overall play.