Profitable $5/$10 HE Session Finishes Up Foxwoods Visit

[shipitfish]

My last Foxwoods session was the best, by far. I recovered nearly all the losses from my $1/$2 no limit HE sessions. In one four hour session, I won $544 playing $5/$10 limit HE with a full kill. I mostly played a straight-forward game, and the hands were primarily not all that interesting. Just a solid, tight-aggressive game worked pretty well. There were a few hands worth talking about.

I made a pretty good semi-bluff in a multi-way pot. I had a very tight table image, and even made sure to expose some tight preflop folds (like KQs to an UTG raise). I used this image to pick up a few pots. In one case, I had limped in on the button with A 4. Two had limped before me, and the blinds came along, so we saw the flop of K 8 3 five-handed.

I thought about bluffing at the flop with position when it was checked to me, since uncoordinated flops with only one card in the "play zone" are good spots for bluffs. However, two of the players in the pot with me would often take cards off with as little as one overcard to try and make a big pair on the turn. I didn't think I could get all four of my opponents to fold with just one bet. I checked to see the turn of K.

This was an interesting card. I now had the nut flush draw, and was quite sure that if it was checked to me again, no one had a king. I was planning to bet for sure if it was checked to me. However, the fellow cut-off seat bet. He was a relatively strong player, but overvalued "twenty-point hands" (a term sometimes used for cards that make twenty in Blackjack). This fellow gave me a lot of credit for big hands, and he knew I was capable of a slow play.

When he bet into me, the best I could give him credit for was an 8 with a problematic kicker; if he held that, he probably held something like 78 or maybe J8. He wouldn't have played A8, Q8 or K8. He would have raised preflop with 99 or better, as he usually overvalued pairs preflop by raising too often.

I knew that he'd give me respect, and he could get away from a weak holding. I also knew that he was capable of trying to pick up this pot here, and decided that I could raise him off of his 8 about 20-30% of the time, and get him to fold immediately any weaker holding. If he did call, I still had 12 outs to win (note the K 8 was on the board, so there were no spades that filled him up, and I was pretty that an Ace was good for me, as he'd fold his own ace-high to my turn-raise, if that's all he held.

I raised the turn, making a 2-to-3.5 bet, with outs if I did get called. The field cleared, and the good-playing fellow in the cutoff looked at me like "you slowplayed something, didn't you", and folded. I did my best to look disappointed, but was glad to win right there without having to get lucky on the river.

Generally, I was quite proud of my play in this session. The table was incredibly loose, and the game had been that way since the night before. (nick_marden and I had played in it the night before, but had been very card-dead and played only a few hands.) Many of the players had been up all night losing money.

Sometimes, I wonder why people want to sit and throw their money away. What motivates them? I get the retired folks, but the people who clearly aren't retired? Don't they have jobs (this was the middle of the week)? How can they play every hand and drop $1,000 in twelve hours of $5/$10 play? Are they just addicted gamblers, or is there more of a story there?

I think I got most curious about this table because it was unusually quiet. We went an hour at this table where no one said a word, except the occasional "button move" or the dealer telling someone it was their action. Strange, quiet calling stations, what motivates thee?

So, this is the last of my recent Foxwoods trip posts. While I did play some O/8 while there, too, it was a short session and not much happened. I have a partially drafted post about about Greg's game last Tuesday. I've already put up a phone post about the California games, and I expect to do more in the next 48 hours.