Live play: Tulalip $1/$2

Over the past 1.5 months I logged 7 live sessions, with 2 wins and 5 losses for a grand total of -$257. Not great. Not horrible, but not great.

I had been playing very well, I thought. But I took last weekend off, and the week away from the tables gave me time to reflect, and found what I thought were some leaks. Well, the two major ones were: 1) playing too many hands, and 2) bluffing players who were incapable of folding top pair no kicker. Simple stuff. Basic discipline.

Tonight, I logged two wins: 1 for $676, and one for $28 (at a local casino playing $2-40 spread).

Tulalip $1/$2.

Got sat not ten minutes after arriving, which is awesome. When I got to the table, I had to ask again if it was 1/2 or 3/5: two players had over $500 in front of them. One woman had $500 in green $25 chips alone! You don't see this too often in a game with a max buy-in of $100.

Table seemed pretty gambly, which meant that the best course of action was to tighten up and pick my spots; avoid marginal hands OOP, and value bet my strong hands on every street. Standard poker.

Pot of the night:

UTG with 44, make it $6 to go and 3 of us go to the flop:

FLOP: 934 rainbow

I don't like to slow play here: I lead out $10; folds to the button who raises to $30. I'm guessing an over pair, and knowing what I know from him in the past, he'll call most anything I put out there if he's got an over pair. I raise to $80, and he re-raises to $180.

This re-raise really got me. I took my time and thought about this. I started the hand with about $320. I start to consider whether I've got the underset: whether he really has 99. I begin to wonder how deep our stacks need to be to consider folding a set here.

Once I decide to call (spread-limit, so betting is capped after the 3rd raise), I take a little time to count out the chips and figure out how to get him to call for the rest of my chips: if he's got 99 then oh well, I reload.

I say "I call, and I'm all in blind on the turn." He INSTAcalls.

TURN:
[934] 6

RIVER:
[9346] 9

Villain: shows 88 for two pair, 8's and 9's
HERO: shows 44 for a full house, 4's full of 9's.

I've played this guy like 3 times over the past couple months, and won large pots from him each time. He says that here he put me solidly on AK, and figured I was trying to push him off his hand. It's amazing that he didn't consider the fact that I could have simply had 99/TT/JJ/QQ/KK either!

Thing is: in this guy's eyes, I'm the guy that raised on the button with 64o and almost cracked his KK when I flopped 2 pair (over a month ago). In his eyes, I'm the guy who will call or raise with seemingly any two cards, and an UTG "standard" 3x's raise means AK or some odd 10-7 or 9-6 etc.

Somehow, to him, I'm the guy who tries to buy pots with big bets. He apparently hadn't noticed how locked-down I was playing this session. Of course, this was also helped by the fact that earlier in the session I re-raise-shoved on the flop with nothing but a draw, was called, and got there. Thing is, in that situation I read the hands perfectly and was a mathematical favorite to win. He saw me push with a draw; I saw me value-betting. He probably considers me reckless.

I'm happy to have this reputation! :)