So in a few of my last posts I commented on how few losing sessions I had. Well, that pretty much ended this weekend. Of the last 5 tables I have sat at I have only had one winning session (it was a pretty good one so my loses are limited). I am not down huge, a week’s worth of winnings. Normal variance – but that doesn’t make it better.
I have learned, or re-learned a few things. The big one is that at these micro-limits you can not bully a table at all. Example: UTG with QQ on a full table. I raised to 20c. A few callers including the SB. The flop is 6-2-K rainbow. SB checks, I bet. One other caller but the SB calls. 2 on the turn. Check-Bet-3rd player folds-Raise. Crap. I knew it. He has a deuce and I am a sucker. A smart player would lay it down figuring I am dead to a Q but apparently I am not that smart. I call. River is a blank, SB leads out, I call. A-2 offsuit. Maybe I am too tight, but I lay down A-2 off in the SB against a raise- especially an early position raise. Even if I do call, I don’t call a bet against the raiser if I hit bottom pair. Now the bad post-turn play is all mine. The check-raise is textbook and I should have saved myself 40c and folded. And my read was solid. So all was not lost. This is the kind of situation in NL that a 4x bet would drive the SB out of the hand and certainly a pot sized bet post flop would.
I did have one really good table last night that I nearly doubled my buy-in which reduced the losses dramatically. I didn’t really change my game too much, it just worked out better. Bless me variance. As of right now I am down to just over 82% of my first level goal. I hope to get there this weekend. I might also try and work off my bonus for Poker Tracker via VegasPokerPro.com. They have a pretty good selection of cardrooms including Full Tilt.
BTW: plumbing sucks. I came home Monday to find my tub faucet would not turn off. It was an expensive learning experience but apparently solder got into the valve and jammed it open.