The Opposite Of Bad

I don't want to say that I am running good and/or hot right now and jinx myself, so I will say that I am doing the opposite of bad right now. The past four days have seen me win at least a buy-in, and it feels pretty good to finally have some hands hold up. I'm actually running a little bit above expectations right now!! Say what?!?! Here is the monthly graph so far:

Though, it isn't too hard to make money when you have players making these type of plays on you:

Full Tilt Poker, $1/$2 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players

SB: $200
BB: $191.60
UTG: $141.45
Hero (MP): $547.75
CO: $205
BTN: $279.15

Pre-Flop: Qd Qs dealt to Hero (MP) UTG raises to $4, Hero raises to $15, 4 folds, UTG calls $11

Flop: ($33) 6c 4s 6h (2 Players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $22, UTG raises to $126.45 and is All-In, Hero calls $104.45

Turn: ($285.90) Ac (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

River: ($285.90) Qc (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Results: $285.90 Pot ($3 Rake)
UTG showed 2s 2h (two pair, Sixes and Twos) and LOST (-$141.45 NET)
Hero showed Qd Qs (a full house, Queens full of Sixes) and WON $282.90 (+$141.45 NET)

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Here is an interesting hand where I flop a set on a monotone and coordinated flop. Villain is a agro donk/spew monkey. What should I do on the turn here? Just keep on firing and be happy to get it all-in? Or would checking behind here ever be good?

Full Tilt Poker, $1/$2 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players

BB: $200
UTG: $160.95
MP: $237.50
Hero (CO): $461.60
BTN: $200
SB: $305.35

Pre-Flop: Jc Jh dealt to Hero (CO)
UTG folds, MP calls $2, Hero raises to $9, BTN folds, SB calls $8, BB folds, MP calls $7

Flop: ($29) Qd Jd Ad (3 Players)
SB checks, MP checks, Hero bets $18, SB folds, MP calls $18

Turn: ($65) 7h (2 Players)
MP checks, Hero ??????

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Here are two hands where I wondering if I should value bet the river here? Or am I only ever getting called by better hands?

Hand1: UTG was a donk running at 56/6/1.7 (VPIP/PFR/Agg). A raise on the flop or turn doesn't really make sense, because it is one of the situations where I am way ahead or way behind. I beat KJ, K8-K2 (doubtful he has one of these, but he is 56/6) and air. He doesn't call with Air. He fore sure calls with the other hands, but KJ is the only likely hand he can call with that I beat.

Full Tilt Poker, $1/$2 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 5 Players

SB: $200
BB: $124
UTG: $201.20
Hero (CO): $221.40
BTN: $44.70

Pre-Flop: Kh Qd dealt to Hero (CO)
UTG calls $2, Hero raises to $9, 3 folds, UTG calls $7

Flop: ($21) Kc 9h Kd (2 Players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $14, UTG raises to $28, Hero calls $14

Turn: ($77) Ad (2 Players) UTG bets $34, Hero calls $34

River: ($145) Tc (2 Players)
UTG checks, Hero ???

Hand2: Villain is not a regular and he is running at 21/11/1.9 after 255 hands. I just call with AJo with position. If this was a regular LAG, I would 3-bet here, but not with someone like this.

Full Tilt Poker, $1/$2 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players

Hero (BTN): $223.95
SB: $207
BB: $215.10
UTG: $86
MP: $727.65
CO: $160.80

Pre-Flop: Ad Js dealt to Hero (BTN)
2 folds, CO raises to $7, Hero calls $7, 2 folds

Flop: ($17) 8h Jh 4d (2 Players) CO bets $14, Hero calls $14

Turn: ($45) 2s (2 Players) CO bets $33, Hero calls $33

River: ($111) 7h (2 Players)
CO checks, Hero ?????

So the flush draw and straight draw hits, and it could definitely look like I have one of those draws. Would you bet here and maybe get value from KJ or QJ? Or just check behind?

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And the Funny hand of the Day! I don't really have to say much about this hand. 4 handed, and this dude flops the nizzles, but never once bets. gj, nh, gg, wp.

Full Tilt Poker, $1/$2 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 4 Players
BTN: $206.15
SB: $214.60
BB: $203
Hero (UTG): $203

Pre-Flop: 5h Ah dealt to Hero (UTG)
Hero raises to $7, BTN calls $7, SB calls $6, BB calls $5

Flop: ($28) 8d Qc Qs (4 Players)
SB checks, BB checks, Hero checks, BTN checks

Turn: ($28) Jc (4 Players)
SB checks, BB checks, Hero checks, BTN checks

River: ($28) 3d (4 Players)
SB checks, BB checks, Hero checks, BTN checks

Results: $28 Pot ($1.40 Rake)
BTN showed 7s 7c (two pair, Queens and Sevens) and LOST (-$7 NET)
SB showed Qh 8h (a full house, Queens full of Eights) and WON $26.60 (+$19.60 NET)
BB mucked 6c 8c (two pair, Queens and Eights) and LOST (-$7 NET)
Hero showed 5h Ah (a pair of Queens) and LOST (-$7 NET)

Cheers!

Final Table

Believe it or not, I've actually played some poker in the last week. And guess what? I've won some money. The majority of that was from making the final table of last Wednesday's $24+2 26k Guaranteed at Full Tilt. After 5 hours of play, I went out in 7th place and made a nice $950. I played my usual super tight ways, but I think I made a few mistakes at the end. With 7 left, I folded AJo from UTG. I'm not sure if this was a huge mistake, but it was the best hand I had seen in 4 orbits. I probably should have just run with, but the table was playing really aggressive. In the end, the Short stack got it all in against the BB, and his KJ won (Board showed AJxxx, so I would have won).

And then a few hands later, it folded to the super aggressive SB and he pushed. I looked down and saw A8s. The SB had a big stack and was playing extremely loose. just in the last few orbits, he had gone to showdown with power house hands such as Q2o and 62s. I decided to call my with my short stack (About an M of 5), and he had AK this time. Oh well, another one of those close calls. First place got over seven grand.

Cash game play has been ok. I'm up about $250 through 2200 hands for the month split between 100NL and 200NL. I'm really close to missing out on Iron Man at Full Tilt for the first time in 18 months, so I'm going to have to play every day this month to get that.

I might try and play the Mookie tonight. I played last week, and I was the Final Table bubble boy. I don't remember how I went out, but it was a suckout, hehe.

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No, this isn't turning into a food blog, but I have to show you this:

I love this time of the year, because I start getting lots of vegetables from my garden. Everything that you see in this picture, except for the hamburger bun and ketchup and cheese, is home grown. The hamburger is from a cow on my in-laws farm. Then we have fried onions, tomatoes (red and yellow), Cucumbers, Sweet Corn, and even the beer (home brewed by yours truly). Looks good, doesn't it. MMMMMmmmmmmmm

Cheers!

Back from Texas

I'm back from Texas after being there for 4 days to attend NI week. The conference was really good and I learned a lot. The weather was pretty hot on Monday and Wednesday, with it reaching into the hundreds. Tuesday was nice because it sprinkled a little bit and was cloudy.

The food in Austin was excellent. On Monday I ate at Roux, which used to be Jazz. I ate at Jazz when I was in Austin 8 years ago and had the best catfish that I've ever had. I was looking forward to going back there and getting it again, but ownership had changed. I had Red Fish on Asparagus and it was delicious.

Tuesday I ate at Moonshiners and had a steak. Again, it was very good. I forgot to take a picture until I was almost done with my steak. Mmmmmm.


And on Wednesday, I ate at Stubbs and had their BBQ Brisket with Fried Okra and Mashed Potatoes. I was expecting a pretty spicy BBQ sauce, but it was nice and mild.

I think I found a new favorite beer while I was down in Texas: Shiner Boch. Hopefully they sell it up here in Minnesota.

It's nice to be back though. Travel was pretty crappy. We got delayed in Rochester when our plane didn't arrive on time. Then, we finally got on the plane and we sat on the runaway for 25 minutes. I'm not sure what the heck happened, but in Rochester, they only have a total of about 10-15 commercial flights leave per day. It's not like we were in a long line to get on the runaway. All of that led to us missing our connecting flight in Chicago by 5 minutes. When we got to our drop off gate, the new plane was still there. We got off and hoofed it to the other wing, but it was gone when we got there. So we all got stand by tickets for the 9:55 flight (5 hours later). If we missed this one, it wouldn't be until noon the next day before we could get out of there. Luckily, we were able to get on the 9:55 flight. Thank God, because the Chicago Airport sucks.

On our way back home, we almost missed our connecting flight from Chicago back to Rochester because they changed the gate on us without saying anything over the loud speaker. I was in the bathroom when I heard the Final boarding call. WTF?

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Because of my trip, and my lack of interest in poker lately, it had been 9 days with no poker. That is by far the longest time without playing poker in 3 years. I've played a little at 100NL since I've been back, but only about 800 hands. I'm up a huge $10! Of course, I'm already down a buy-in in EV, so my luck hasn't turned around yet. My three biggest losing hands are: Another KK loses to AA all-in PF; Over pair getting beat by donk who hits gutshot. 3-bet pot with TPTK and he having TP 3rd kicker. I'm going to stick it out at 100NL for a while.

Cheers!