ahhh....fulltilt again!

So I spent the past few days at my Aunt's place in Arizona, and was able to log a few hours on Fulltilt. I'll admit the first night I was a little rusty, and got involved in too many hands, ended the night down (hell, I'm only playing small stakes, so being down $7 wasn't too bad, but that meant that I ended down about 30%), but came back strong last night

Here's one thing I realized for sure: I stayed out of about 5 orbits around the table: post blinds and folded to any raises/flop bets. Then I was easily able to take 3 of the next 5 pots: first one I got pocket aces preflop, re-raised preflop, and bet the pot on the flop to take an OK pot. Then 2 of the next 4 hands I made a pre-flop raise or re-raise, and took down those pots uncontested. That put me up already. Then I just sat back again, and called a late-position raiser (who had never been challenged when he button-raised/re-raised since I sat down) from the BB with A-8 off. It was only $1.25 or something to see a flop, I was up and had a good table image that the players seemed to respect. Flop: 3-A-A. WAMMO!! Flop top set!! I bet about 1/3 of the pot: want it callable; he re-raises me... I called. At this point I'm actually worried I might be outkicked. Turn comes a 6, I make a small bet - 1/4 the pot or so - he re-raises. I type "You got the other one, huh?" and there's no response. This may have been a mistake on my part. The river comes the perfect card: 8. I have the stone-cold nuts. I bet smallish; he re-raises - doubles my bet; I re-re-raise which would've put him all-in = INSTANT fold. I type "I thought so."

I've been going back over this hand in my head, and I really think I should NOT have typed the "You have the other one." I wanted him to think I was bluffing him in the chat, but due to my table image I now doubt he'd put me on that since I got SO heavily involved in that one pot. Of course he wanted me to think he had the ace (and if he did, amazing lay-down!), but I think my image and the all-in push made him realize that I wouldn't have done that without an ace. At that point in the hand, you're betting for one of a very few reasons: 1) you're weak, and want your opponent to fold, 2) you're strong, and want a call/re-raise. Unless I have the nuts here, if I was re-raised (even holding an ace in this situation), I would probably NOT re-raise unless the other player had shown weakness throughout the hand. Re-raising means that I'm probably only going to get called by a hand that can beat me. If I have close to the nuts, I'll flat call - just incase I'm beat. If I'm weak but have shown strenght throughout (and conversely, my opponent only came to life on the river really), I may try to bet my opponent out of the pot). But often enough at this point the pot is large enough that simply calling in the long run will be more profitable (as it will guard against being played back at and needing to seriously consider folding).

It was nice: ended up about $25 up for the session; went and played Razz for a half-hour and did a very similar thing: fold fold fold fold fold, and when I came to life I got respect. I folded my way down a bunch, and in one hand came back to even, then started playing a little bit more, went up some, and ended down about $3 for razz due to a seriously bad chase (by the end I knew I was beat, but with a $0.50 bet to win over $3, I had to call with my A-2-3-6-7, even though I figured I was beat. If he was trying to pull off a bluff, after what I had invested it'd been awful, and after investing what I did odds dictated my calling. Ah, well - two nights of playing, about 2.5 hours, and up about $15. Not stellar, but good enough.

Here's the funny thing: both nights I had planned on doing at STT, but thought again and said, "eh, that'd take an hour - I'll probably go to bed before then" only to find myself on both nights for over an hour!

AHHH!! Felt good to play again!

Wednesday night I will be checking out the freeroll tournament, and am most definitely looking forward to sitting down for a "live game." Next Friday I may check out the tourny at work: this week it's gonna be a pot limit Stud/8 tourny. I may change my mind as it's not my best game, but we'll see. But come hell or high water, I'm playing live cards this week!!!! :)

- thePokerDegen