From the Cheap Seats

Tuesday, January 4

Bad way to start

After a lot of drinking for New Year's, the resulting cold, and a weekend visiting my girlfriend's family, I played in our first home game of the year. Needless to say I was very tired going into the game. As I have mentioned on several occasions before, this is one of the worst states of mind for my game. Anyway, to make a long story short I started off the night with lots of bad plays. I was cold calling, missing possible flushes and straights on the board, and missing obvious opportunities to take down a pot at signs of weakness. At one point, I decided to bluff the blind off his hand and popped it up preflop only to forget that I was bluffing by the time the flop rolled around. I looked down to check my cards and checked still wondering why I had played that garbage hand. Anyway, I later realize what I was doing by the turn and try to continue my bluff again. I think its clear that didn't work and I lost 3 BB for nothing. That's the kind of mindset I was in anyway.

One interesting hand, I am dealt 66 and call. Flop comes AQ6. I threw in a bet and get called by 1. Turn is an A. At this point, I know I am set. I figured he either had a Q or the case 6. I bet out and he raises me. I didn't think he had AQ or QQ as he didn't raise preflop or my flop bet and I didn't think he was trapping me. So i reraised and he just calls. At this point with just a call, I am sure he has a Q and didn't put me on an A. The river brings us another Q and I know I am screwed. He bets and I make a crying call to see him turnover QJ. Oh well. Fairly large pot but nothing I should be upset about. I think I played it correctly. I didn't slowplay or allow him to go on cheaply at any point as I was betting/raising whenever possible.

After that, I did win a few other big hands to negate my bad play early on and finished the night dead even. Not a great way to start the new year, though it could have been much worse with that mindset going in.

On another note, I played at Absolute for the first time. The software seemed ok. Pretty standard I guess though a very busy screen. The only bad note so far is the number of players. There was 1 full 3/6 table and 2 other tables about half full each. On top of that, my roommate was playing on one of the tables at the time so I only had 2 choices.