Live games rule

If you read my post about my first Tulalip trip, you know what happened when I made the worst call of my life. Scariest thing about that hand was that I had pocket aces, under the gun, and got like 5 callers when I made a standard 3x's blind raise.

SO in a very spur-of-the-moment decision, last night I decided to head to Tulalip (was going to go Sunday afternoon, but that indeterminable "something" pushed me into action last night). Long wait for 1/2; short wait (2nd on list) for 3/5. So within 5 minutes I'm sitting at the 3/5 table; max buy in is $300, I started with $200. (side note: maybe I'm becoming an action-junkie, but I'd much rather play 3/5 than 1/2 - something a year and a half ago I didn't think I'd hear myself say)

I sit down UTG, and I look at my cards - one red ace, one black ace. I immediately have flashbacks to what happened last week. I'm sitting in the same seat (seat 7), though different table. I don't know a thing about this table yet - don't know what "standard raise" is, don't know how loose/tight/good/bad they were. I decided on the higher-end of the probable raise-spectrum: I raised to $20. Wouldn't you know it, I get 5 callers!!

In my head I'm preparing myself to be able to let go of these aces if the flop or turn is scary. Unlike last week when I was married to my aces, this time I was scared of them. It's kinda like the first time I held a gun - it felt good to hold it, but also made me nervous. Aces are powerful.

$120 in the pot; flop comes AsKc3s. BINGO!! Big blind checks. I look at the pot, look at my stack, and mutter something about not having enough ammo for the turn if I pot bet the flop, so I just shove all-in. Folds to the big blind, who asks for a count (that was easy - $180), and then calls. I turn to him and say, "flush draw?" Shakes his head yes. He's got Ks7s. All I have to do is dodge the 35 spades left in the deck, and I've more than doubled on my first hand. Turn is red, river is black - but a club. *phew* Doubled+ with pot A.

The table was really weird - quite passive; so much limping. Very abc players, too: bet if they had it, mucked if they didn't. When I was in position with even a moderately OK hand and there were several limpers, I'd often put a raise in (3x's bb + however many limpers there were), and that would usually be enough to take down a $20 or $25 pot preflop without a confrontation. You had to be careful, though, of EP raises: they would often times build into a monster pot as after one or two callers, people were I guess thinking they were getting odds with ATC.

Best play of the night: I'm in the cutoff with J10. A couple limpers, so I join in the fun and limp too. BB checks his option, and 5 of us see the flop. FLOP: 89x. Checks to me, I bet $15 (OESD to the nuts!). BB calls (he's been in most every hand and chases), all others fold. Turn a blank. BB checks; I bet out $35, he calls.

Here's where live poker rules over online... River is an ace. If I wasn't watching the guy, I would have thought this was an awful card for me: I've seen him call down one hand with bottom pair + an ace. Online I'd have no idea what to do here: if checked to, I would probably check behind, playing it safe. But I wasn't playing online: as the ace falls off, this guy visibly slouches and looks super disappointed; it was obvious to anyone who watched is body and his face that he certainly did not like that ace out there (I wouldn't be surprised if he'd been on the same draw I was actually). He checks, I fire like $75 or something out there, and he mucks. He was such an abc player that when he didn't bet the ace I knew he didn't have it. His physical mannerisms just drove the point home. I earned that pot damnit!!! With J10o. :)

...incidentally, I had aces one other time, in MP. After one limper I raised to $25 ($5 more than my standard raise would've been if I were in position), and got no callers. I was surprised, guess that was too much. The table had possibly noticed, though, that most times I raised preflop I ended up dragging in chips. Or they all just had rags. :)

After a little see-sawing back and forth, I ended up cashing out $550. Short session, about 4 hours. I'm happy with $350 in 4 hours! I left even though the game was really good - I had a good line on all but 2 players (the 2 new players that just sat down). The game was SO soft. I opened up my game a lot more than usual from position because the table was so passive I knew most any significant bet on the flop, if the action before me was right, would take down the pot. I knew who to stay away from at the table (Mr. TightNit in seat 2); I knew who would be willing to double me up with middle pair (Mr. Overbettor in seat 9, who was about $800 deep)...

And yet I walked away. Why? Because for whatever reason, I started to get nervous about putting chips into the pot. Maybe it was results-oriented thinking.... I had a nice profit, and I didn't want to blow it? I dunno... I never had that type of thinking in Vegas; maybe because I was stuck so bad from last week? Whatever reason, something in me decided I wouldn't be playing great poker at that point, and I made the best decision possible: when the blinds came around to me I cashed out.