....and he's BACK!

FINALLY, finally, finally -- ended up staying longer than expected at work last night; nothing on the plate for the evening so I decided I'd stay and use the ultra-super-hypersonic-fast internet connection at work to play a little online poker. While I'd love to have played at my regular stomping grounds (FullTilt), even for play money, I know - if they wanted to - the network admins could track any and everything done over the network (and esp. being "after hours" may have triggered a red flag), and honestly I'd like to keep my job, so I tried out this other site I knew of: www.nlop.com. Nothing to download - it's run within a browser using Flash. Perfect.

Bluff Magazine is now one of their sponsors, and they basically run freerolls that (eventually, you have to qualify etc etc etc) offer prizes - including some seats into some big tournys, cash, all that fun stuff. I hadn't played there before, and figured it's better than nothing. So I log in, and get on the list for the next available Sit 'n Go. About 30 seconds later, I'm playing again!! Woo-hoo-hoo!! The drought is over! :)

So the table appears, and I think -- wow, this is gonna suck. starting stack of 500, blinds 10/20 (if you play RiverChasers, imagine a starting stack of 50 blinds 1/2 instead of the usual starting stack of 100). Crap shoot, I'm thinking. I end up drawing the cutoff seat. Cool - late position, maybe start of with a little tester-blind stealing.

The cards are dealt, and - out of the 9 people at the table, 7 people are limping into the first hand!! With all but one early acting opponent limping, I realize this is going to be very much no fold 'em hold 'em. I had crap (J 6 off I think), so I bail on the first hand. Flop comes rags - sb checks, bb bets 20, everyone calls! Betting 20 into a 140 pot?! I'm realizing NOW that no, this is NOT going to be no fold 'em -- this table is going to be ruled by AGGRESSION. I think turn/river everyone checked.... amazing. Next hand - more of the same (but I take quick notice that the same guy who folded preflop previously also folds this hand -- here's gonna be the competition I imagine).

SO - 3rd hand, I'm 3 off the button, AK off, some limpers, and I decide to raise to 95. BB calls, everyone else folds. "Perfect," I'm thinking, "exactly what I thought - they're all going to be very unwilling to invest that much into a pot. Agression will be THE key in this game." Flop comes something raggedy, I'm not even close to connecting, BB checks, I bet about 130 - BB folds. I take down a good size pot. Now I can sit back and coast through the rest of the blind rounds and see if anyone has taken notice that the aggressive play worked.

No. No one here seems to have a clue. No preflop raises; limpers all around - and always min. bets on the flop. Incredible. "Oh how I wish the players on FullTilt would all play like this!" I think to myself! The one player who also folded the first two hands I'm betting is a decent player: he too knows that getting involved early isn't always necessary, that a medium sized-pot in the next round or the 3rd round will be equal-or-greater than a big pot now.

I picked up another pot with a legit hand this time that I got to showdown: I flopped a set of queens and had two players pay me off (busted one of them who hit bottom pair with a horrible kicker)... was glad the rest of the table saw that hand, though - they'll give me credit for the other two pots I won (IF, that is - and that's a BIG if - they're even paying attention like that!). Someone else busted out with crap, and there's three of us dominating the play at this point: me, the other guy I thought would be the competition, and another guy who I think started to watch us put pressure on the players and started getting aggressive (though I DID completely steal a pot off him when I raised on the button preflop with 6/3 off, which he was the only caller, and when he checked the flop to me and I bet the pot, he went away --- why can't they ALL be this easy! :) ).

So the three of us are dominating the table, and end up taking the rest of the table out, me the big stack, the other two tied - but I've got a big lead. I stole another couple of pots, and then got VERY unlucky: I think my dominating put one of the other players on tilt, as he ended up going all-in preflop with 5/2 off; I had 99 - nice hand for three-way, and I had like 2500 chips to his 700, so I called. Flops two pair, he's doubled up. We go back and forth for the next blind round, and then the blinds start having big impacts on him and the other player: I've got over 50% of the chips in play, and am pressuring when I have a decent starting hand, and not pushing too hard. The 5/2 dude busts next when he went all-in on the flop (after, btw, calling a preflop raise of about 200) when hit bottom pair; he gets called by J's, and the 5/2 dude called with 7/3!! wow.....

Heads up with the player I picked out at the get go (and who I tried to stay out of the way of most of the tournament). Two hands later, it's done when his KJ failed to improve (oh yea, and my KK hits a set on the flop). VICTORY IS MINE!!

BOY it felt nice to play again!! And yea, the competition was lame (at least 'till it got down to 4-handed), but still - it was a nice feeling. I can't WAIT to play again! I may check out that freeroll place tomorrow night just to see what it's all about; if not I'll be checking out one of the games at work next week hopefully (AND if not that, next Wednesday I'll check the freeroll). And then once I move into my new place and get my computer back here, I can get back online and start playing again!!

In all honesty it was probably good to have a break in there - I was playing like mad, and a nice little "vacation" away from playing gave me time to read some stuff and think about my game and some things I can do differently to try to take my game up another notch.

That's it from here!

- thePokerDegen