Update

My blog entries have become pretty sparse recently, and this is largely because I just haven't been playing much poker. I'm not sure why this has been, but I suspect it's a function of my brain realizing that the rest of my life is so desperately out of order that it's on the brink of becoming a disaster, and diverting all resources away from secondary concerns like poker and toward trying to get my shit together for a last-ditch push into the end of the semester, exams, and trying to find some sort of job this summer.

A few nights ago, I went back to the Horseshoe for the first time in a couple of weeks, with a college friend. Two hands stand out in my memory.

Hand #1

I open from the cutoff with Js9d and get called by the button, a 30ish guy who seems like a pretty typical TAGfish, and big blind, who is a pretty typical loose-weak player who sees a lot of flops and folds on nearly all of them. The flop comes 6d7dTd. Big blind checks and I cbet $22 into $30. Button shoves for $104 all day, making it $82 to me to win a $156 pot (well, $154 after rake). Big blinds folds, I think for a while and call. The turn comes Jd and the river bricks off and the button shows 4d5d and starts berating me with standard shit like "I guess I was wrong, you are a donk after all!" and "how can you possibly call?" His friends at the table join in and for the rest of the night they refer to me as "the donk." He briefly succeeds in semi-tilting me and I respond with "okay, next time I'll fold - is that what you'd prefer?" and he tanks for a second and says "YES!"

A couple of hours later, Alex and Micah from Cardrunners show up and briefly rail me while waiting for their seats. Villain from this hand starts telling them "your friend is a donk" so I tell them the story of this hand. From time to time villain interjects something like "and he didn't even have a pair!" and everyone involved laughs - but we're not laughing WITH him, we're laughing AT him.

Hand #2

UTG, a meek East Asian woman who was at the table with her South Asian husband and has been playing pretty tight, opens for $10 and it folds around to me in the small blind and I look down at AA and 3bet to $35. UTG calls and the flop comes Qxx. I bet $40 into $64 and she calls without much hesitation. Turn bricks off and I shove for about 3/4 pot and she again calls without much hesitation...and tables AJ, drawing dead into the river. She didn't seem like the kind of player who would do something like this and I have no clue what she was thinking here but I'll take it.

Yesterday I played an online session for the first time in a couple of weeks because Goodeh offered to sweat me for a few minutes.

Hand #1

(After I check/call the turn and the river comes off and I check again:)

[16:13] <Secret_Asian_Man> prob folding to a shoefv here...
[16:13] <Goodeh`laptop> i call

(I call and lose.)

[16:13] <Secret_Asian_Man> lol oops
[16:13] <Secret_Asian_Man> look at me, listening to goodeh and losing a bi
[16:14] <Goodeh`laptop> lol

I deviate from the standard jam-jam-jam line with a big overpair here because I'm experimenting with seeing turns and rivers postflop with big pairs and trying to learn how to play them correctly on later streets, and also because we're 140bb deep. Goodeh seemed to advocate just trying to get it in on the flop and that might be the best course of action.

Hand #2

Similar situation, we're 140bb deep and I have a big pair and I flat with it to try to play postflop poker. Again, I feel like this may have been Fancy Play syndrome and just jamming might have been optimal.

Hand #3

Villain is a 60/15 fish. His river range is either Qx or air and I call hoping to pick off a bluff but he had it. But I'm not sure if calling is right against this type of villain because I'm not sure how often he's bluffing.

Hand #4

[16:26] <Goodeh`laptop> dont hate turning kj into a bluff here
[16:26] <Goodeh`laptop> dont feel that good about my hand
[16:27] <Secret_Asian_Man> yeah i was considering it
[16:27] <Secret_Asian_Man> i was considering foldin gturn tbh
[16:28] <Secret_Asian_Man> and that river would have been rgeat to bluff...

After Goodeh left, I started running good again and clawed my way back up to -$30 for the session from a low of about -$150.

NL50 Progress

$336.40 / $500.00 after 23,661 hands

I feel the need to track my progress at the Horseshoe as well as my online progress, so I'm setting myself a goal of winning ten buyins at 1/2 there and then taking a three-buyin shot at 2/5. Unfortunately I'm still stuck a bunch so that may take a while.

Horseshoe Progress

-$646 / $2,000.00 after 54 hours