Goals and my first session of the year

What is up? Long time since I have written anything. It is funny how we all think we are on the cusp of greatness in this game and still can not get there. I am going to work hard to try to get there and maybe with a little feedback from the readers, I may get over that hump. I have put together several goals, personal, work, and of course in this game we love poker. I have a large goal to win a medium buy in tournament this year ($500 or more buy in) my smaller goals are to keep playing the $1-$2 nl game and continue to beat it for at least one buy in a session. Even smaller will be the way I approach the game. I will be doing a lot of learning as I am not in the hand, watching players body language and betting patterns against the flops and from what positions they enter pots. I will also be on here at least twice a week. I hope by the end of the year you and I have learned quite a bit about this game and maybe ourselves.

Let's talk about my first action of the year. I entered Harrahs at about 10:30 pm this past Saturday and had a plan of action in place. Got into a game at about 11 pm and by 3:30 am was up two buy ins! That game broke and I got into another and proceeded to bleed off my winnings for the next six hours. During my last hour of play I got it all back! HUH? I KNOW!

The question is...Did I get lucky? Yep.

Well I went into the game playing tight/aggressive, told myself to not get involved with weak aces up front nor in back. If I did open it would always be for a raise, so I was only playing quality hands. I only played J 10, Q J, etc. in position if there was a raise into me otherwise I folded, and they had to be suited, so I sat around for awhile. For the most part it worked, my first three dealers were uneventful as I was only up a little when this asian player came over and plopped down in the four seat and started playing crazy, raising just about everything. Then I caught it, I got a nice tell on him, when he had a hand he leaned in a bit and would bet every turn. When he had a weaker hand, usually a drawing hand he would fire at the flop and check the turn, yet when he fired at the flop he sat back a little and thought on it for a few seconds. Well, I was on the button and had pocket sixes, under the gun limped, asian guy pops it for $15 one caller to me and I call. The lady in the three seat, in the big blind, comes along as well. Four to the flop of Q 7 4 two spades...I am watching the asian guy, indirectly, don't want to stare at him, he is sitting back a bit...good he missed. The lady checks, asian guy fires about forty into the pot, other guy folds and I call so does the lady. The turn card brings an off suit three, the lady checks again, the asian guy does it again thinks and fires about $80 into the pot. I am now looking at the lady, who looks nervous, because I am trying to figure out if she is going to come along or if I need to raise to get her out, but the nervous look told me she may not call. I simply called and she made a crying call. The river brought a beautiful card, an off suit deuce. The asian guy leaned back a little more and started talking to himself a little, he than fires out thirty dollars! Now how much do I want to raise is what I am thinking, how much can I get out of him? I am not worried about the lady to my left....I make it another $200 to go, the lady insta mucks and the asian guy just smiles and says something under his breath, probably something derogatory and he eventually folds. I instantly turn up by sixes and said,"that had you beat huh?" He smiled and nodded his head. Actually folks making that raise into both players probably was not the right move but I felt like I was way ahead yet it was probably not the right move. The table broke an hour later. I move to a new table yet I am really ready to go and should go but GREED is calling me to get more money because the line up was WEAK!!!!!

I gave away a few hundo the next few hours of play. At about 7am Tex, who blogs here as well, sat down next to me, he was not clear headed and was trying to get there but he sat down and picked up aces and got paid off, an hour later he got up, racked up his winnings wished me luck and went to get some sleep. Hope he slept it off well...nice play with the AQ, Tex!

Well it is 9:30 am and I rebuy, tell myself to start playing correctly and I start to build my stack back up. There is this dude in the eight seat, who was so easy to read. One of the easy tells that you all should look for is when a player is in the hand, and hits the flop their hand will move towards their stack, it is an involuntary muscle move. Well the eight seat did this several times and was snapping people off left and right with sets. He built himself a nice stack but he just could not outplay people during other hands, when he would miss with AQ he would make a continuation bet and when called, he would give up. Everytime he did so he did not make that move towards his chips. A very solid tell. I am on the button and look down at 5-6 off suit. Five of us limp in, the flop is A 8 7 two clubs. Three bets into me and I call, only for an off suit four! The last player folds. The turn is an off suit FOUR!!!!! Check, check, eight seat bets the pot, I make it three times the bet to get the flush draw out and the other two behind me fold. The bettor raises back into me!
"YES! No, wait am I reading the board correctly? Yep, I have the nuts right now! So he must have a set, two pair or the same hand."
I ask him how much he has left, he instantly says to me, "I'll go all in if that is what you want."
"All in!" I said.

He called and turned over A 4 off suit for two pair..."please no ace, no four!" The board bricked out and I take down a monster pot.

I continued to play much tighter and built back what I had won, packed up and left.

So yeah, I got lucky...because me and my opponent hit our hands at the same time otherwise I do not get paid off the way I did.

Until next time...You all stay nice as rice and mello as jello!