16th April

Today was a day of bad beats. I was doing pretty well playing 2 tables of 10/25c cash games. I profiled all the players according to the amoung of tables they played. The more tables they play, the less they will bluff, the less they will steal blinds with rags, the less they play those awkward gap connectors. People who play only a few tables will be playing with a much wider range of hands, they'll obviously have the premium hands, and connectors. The main difference is that they play almost any ace, and they aim to bluff people out of pots more, they will get tricky with you. I generally pick tables with the majority of players being players who play more than 6 tables. The reason for this is that It will be easy to tell when these players have a hand because they have such a small range. I can bluff them out of hands because they won't have time to read me. I can also bet low flops because I'll know most of the time they'll be holding high cards or pocket pairs. If they re-raise, I'll know i'm beat.

So basically the start of this session, I won $10. I was on $21 on one table and decided to leave when the blinds came to me. Unfortunately I got AKs the last hand before I had to pay a blind. I raised to 75c, standard raise. Everyone folds but the small blind decides to call. The flop comes down Ac Kc 8s. This is the best flop for me really. If he paired up, I most like have him dominated. Seeing as how I was in position, I decided to play it weak and call his 25c bet into 1.75 pot. He simply calls. Next card is a 2s and now i have a nut flush draw too. I'm in terrific shape. He checks to me. He bet $1 and he calls. The river is 3c which makes a flush draw possible for him. He pushes all in and at this point I seriously doubted he had the flush, I figured he had two pair with Aces and 2s or something. I call and he flips over 22. He hit trips on the river. This was a $40 pot.

I ran the odds on pokerstove, After the flop I had 92% equity. He had 8%. When he hit his set, I had only 30% equity and he had 70% roughly. I'm questioning whether the slow play was a good idea. As most of the time I would have him beat, but would he call my bet if he didn't hit a monster hand? I've decided not to play these hands weak anymore and its better to take a pot down when you can, unless you have the absolute nuts. I thought I effectively had the nuts with top two on that board. When people bet min, they are either trying to buy a cheap draw and curb your own bet, steal the pot or they have a monster hand. I wanted him to make two pair but i really should have bet big on the flop to take it down in case he had the flush draw. I feel it was a bad beat to be honest, but maybe it wasn't. Oh well.

I took a short break cos I was obviously upset about that beat. When I decided to play again, I got AA and raised to 75c preflop. I had one caller on the button. The flop is QQ9. I doubt he has it, I decide to check to him, to induce a bluff, and he bets. I figure my aces are in pretty good shape. Best he has is probably one of the 9s. He decides to re-raise my re-raise and goes all in. Seeing as he was only playing a few tables I put him on a bluff. Turns out he had 99. I had him dominated preflop but sadly when they make full house on the flop, you have only 2 outs. 2 outs which the previous guy had made. Poker can be such a bitch sometimes. I lost $35 dollars overall today. Bankroll sits at $250.