Nice session at .02/.04 last night

Last night I had a nice little session at .02/.04 - I took the advice of those who told me to play at a level more appropriate for my bankroll, and it worked. I felt a lot more comfortable and despite some large up-and-down swings, finished with more than double my buy-in.

SB Played: 13-15 (80%) - BB Played: 11-16 (69%) - Other Played: 30-100 (30%) - Total: 54-131 (41%) - SD Won: 6-14 (43%) - Other Wins: 16 - Profit: $5.02

As mentioned, I brought a lot more of my home-game aggression into this session, and played about 10-15% more hands than I normally do online. At this level, I had always followed the Sklansky advice for low-limit online tables - play tighter and just try to show down better hands. The problem with that is because these people play such a large range of hands, and there's more bodies seeing the flop than normal, those bigger hands (K-J with the Jack paired, for example) don't seem to hold up as often as they should. This particular table had a lot of limpers with almost no standards for what to limp with. My game plan once I noticed that was to limp along with lots of marginal hands and then try to out-play them after the flop. Needless to say, I also tried to mix that in with raises...sometimes limping with big hands, sometimes raising with nothing. I fired lots of continuation bets - sometimes they went away, sometimes they hung around. Although I probably lost as much as I won on those occasions, I think it gave me a nice and loose table image that got me a few big scores when I ended up with Hammer of God-type hands.

Remember when I said I always do well when I get a nice pot early? On the first hand, I saw 7-3o, and paired the 7 on the Q-8-7 flop. I called a minimum bet, then called a raise for another .04. My roommate was railbirding for a second and questioned why - I was just explaining how I had the right odds to call when a 3 came on the turn. I probably fired too much at it with .80 - I had such a disguised hand, but with two diamonds and some straight possibilities out there, I guess I just wanted to know where I stood. Anyway, .52 to kick things off isn't bad!

After losing a couple with marginal high hands (my on-going nemesis), the 10th hand gave me As-Jd in early position. My 3X BB raise had two customers, flop was J-6-5 (all spades). With TPTK and the nut flush draw, $1.12 was immediately fired in. One guy hung around (all he had was 8c-5c...once again, thank goodness for the stupid). The turn was the 7d, and I checked as a kind of information check, I suppose. I was curious to see how much he liked what was out there, and he checked as well. In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have let him see a free card, but I also didn't want to be re-raised out either if he had a made King-high flush. The river was a beautiful 9s, and I sent $1.16 out there. I wish I can say I did so in case his straight got there, but I didn't think of that at the time. He raised, putting me all in. I gleefully called, and took down $3.39 in profit.

One hand I hated - Q-9 from the big blind, I paired on the flop with A-Q-10. My .12 bet was called by two guys, and then I checked it down the whole way. I had one guy check in front of me on the harmless 3c turn, so I should have bet again to be sure of where I was with one other guy to act. Instead, the 8 on the flop gave the other guy a straight, and I called his .52 bet for a reason that I can't remember now. Let's just call it temporary stupidity and move on...

...to another monster hand won by yours truly on the very next deal. I did seem to luck out and win big pots right after losing big ones, so I didn't ever have any confidence dips. 10-10 in the SB, and my 3X BB gets two callers. The flop came A-J-10 rainbow, and it was full speed ahead from me. I guess because this was such a loose table, I just figured that if someone had K-Q or J-J, good luck to them. My .32 raise didn't knock out either guy, and a 6 came on the turn. I bet $1.38, one fold, one all-in for .56 more. No way I'm folding to that, and I was happy to see J-6 as his holding. No help on the river, thank you for your $2.63 donation...please come again.

I lost a tough one around 15 hands later or so. Ad-Jd on the button, 4X BB raise gets one caller. I had been pushing this guy around for a while, and he had started to push back. The flop was A-7-6, no diamonds. I bet .20, he raises to .40, and I call. I figured that could just have been a probe raise to see if I was stealing once again. Earlier in the session, he had re-raised me on the flop when I had nothing, and was kind enough to show his A-A when I mucked. The turn was a 3, and he fired in $1.18. Now, I had to think a bit. What did he have? He was a pretty good player at this level, so I don't think he had 7-6 or A-7 or anything. I had settled on A-10 or A-Q, but I went against my read and called. If I had more time than online gave me, I'd like to think I'd have included 7-7 and 6-6 in his range as well...I do now. The river was a Queen, and he immediately went all-in. At that point, I knew I was beat and quietly mucked my hand. If he had A-10 or A-J, well, he outplayed me...all there is to it.

Around hands 40-57, I was starting to lose more than I won with the aggression, and was down to $5.91. I got Kh-Qh and called a raise and a re-raise up to $1.20 (dumb, dumb, dumb, Sean...you know better than that). The flop was 6-5-5 with one heart, and a fairly loose player went all-in for $4.23. Maybe it was a bluff, maybe it was A-A, but I wasn't sticking around to find out - another guy did though with his A-Q, and he lucked out on Big Raiser Guy when he rivered his Ace against the other guy's J-J. That put me below $5 for the first time in ages, but I was back up to $5.21 on the next hand thanks to Anna Kournikova. Maybe she DOES win sometimes, after all!

From there, I hovered between the $5-$5.80 range...the pattern seemed to be that I lost .20-.60 with medium-high hands, and won about the same with absolute garbage thanks to aggressive betting. On Hand 98 though, I flopped a straight with 9-8 from middle position. It was the ignorant end of the straight mind you, but nothing pre-flop screamed out A-K from anyone. If they had that exact hand, good luck to them. The turn paired the Queen, and that should have made me more nervous than it did. Now, Q-10 and Q-J were ahead of me as well, and I could see people limping with that at this table. Instead, I just called a .13 bet (when a re-raise would have given me the info I needed). A harmless little 6 on the river, and someone bet .32. I doubled the raise, one fold, the original raiser called and showed Q-5o. Thank goodness for the stupid.

Four hands later, I was back up in the high-rent district. I had Ks-3s in the big blind, 3 limpers followed me into a flop of J-J-J. One guy checked, I bet .16, two folded. The checker called me for some reason. Now, he may have had a low pocket pair or maybe two high cards...I'm just not putting anyone on quads. A King appeared on the turn, and my only thought there was how to extract the money from this guy. I figured that at worst, we were chopping unless an Ace came off or something. He solves my problem by going all-in for $2.04, and I insta-call. Mr. Genius is drawing dead with Q-8o, and I accept the $2.12 donation graciously.

I reached my high point at $9.18 when my Q-Q held up against a short stack's 5d-2d (her open-ender didn't get there), then reached another at $9.40 with Q-10o when my continuation bet scared everyone off. I got up to $9.60 with K-Q when my King paired and no one wanted to play, but then I lost a series of small-to-medium pots over the next two orbits to finish at $9.02. All in all, I used this as an experiment in a more aggressive online style, and it obviously paid off for me. I know of course that doing this will result in larger swings, but I have 20 buy-ins at this level so I think I should be able to handle it mentally. I did all right in handling the ups and downs within this session, though I did also hit my cards more often than I didn't.

We'll see how this goes - I think I'm going to grind it out down here for a while until I have 20 buy-ins at .5/.10 ($200, and I'm at $80 or so now).