Wed March 2, 2005

I woke up yesterday morning and made a decision to play differently at WNP.

My understanding of hand values is getting better. I made some lay downs that I would not have made before...and 9 out of 10 times I'd say it was the right decision. I played tighter, but not to the point of only playing the nuts. I loosened up my play at times, sometimes it worked out, sometimes it didn't. With a combination of minimizing my losses, making better decisions, and being patient, I ended up tripling up for the night. I walked away with $60 total (bought in for $20).

A couple of noteworthy hands:

I was in late position. There was a raise, call and reraise behind me. It was $6 to call, I looked down at Q,Q and pushed in the rest of my chips ($22 total). Raiser folded, caller folded, and it was down to the reraiser. It took him a few minutes to make a decision so I put him on A,K (figuring he would have called quickly with As or Ks and probably muck any lower pair). I would have been happy just taking the pot right there, I wasn't sure I wanted to be called by A,K (if that was what he was holding) because doesn't it seem like the A or K always falls when you don't want it to? He read my hand for Qs (figuring the raiser and caller were holding high As and/or Ks) and decided to call with his A,K. He didn't catch his pair and I doubled up.

This next hand I decided to loosen up and chase. I was sitting in late position with K,Qo and decided to call a $2 bet. Three players. The flop came down 10, J, x, giving me the open ended straight draw. I was first to act and checked, $2 bet, call, I decide to call. The turn is another blank and I made the mistake of just calling another $2 bet. I should have either folded or reraised since I thought we were all weak and probably could have taken the pot right there, but I called another $2 bet. River is no help to me and checks all around...(again this would have been another good time to steal the pot with a bet). Someone won the pot with A high.

Overall I felt good about my play last night, I was focused, played tighter but felt like I mixed it up just enough to not give a tight table image that people would automatically fold to.