Quotes, boats, and notes

Firstly:

One of my all-time favorite poker quotes:

Poker is not a card game you play with people. Poker is a people game you play with cards.

This is, I think, why I tend to play so much better when I play one game at a time. Since I bought in last weekend, I've had no losing days, but I've had losing tables. Last night is a good example. I joined two 10¢/20¢ tables at the same time, for the max $5 buy-in on both. I left one table with $10.60. I left the other table with 8¢. This one-good/one-bad seems to happen when I play two tables at a time; when I just play one table, I've almost always ended up ahead.

Why? When I play two tables, and I'm surfing the web between hands, all I have time to do is look at my cards, my position, and the bets on the table. I don't remember that JoeBlow bet through the river with his pocket 3's last hand, and I don't notice that TexPete has no concept of the importance of kickers. When I play one table at a time, I'm more likely to notice these things.

Secondly:

If you read back through this blog's archives, you'll see that my lucky streak ended when Phoenician Casino changed its software and turned off their poker room links. I then played on Empire Poker (linked to Party Poker) and my bankroll went down a bit, inicating to me that it was a good time to quit.

I recently found another site, Tiger Gaming, that's running the same poker software that Phoenican was. It appears to be the same Canadian-heavy population using it, too.

Lastly:

My favorite hand of the week. I'm dealt 66 under the gun. I limp in along with half the table, and the flop comes 776. The blinds bet, I raise, the guy to my left raises, and everyone folds to me. I call. I'm hoping he's got a 7 and thinks its powerful.

The turn is a 5, and we raise each other to the 80¢ max. The river's a K, and again we raise each other to 80¢. I win with my full boat. He shows A7, losing with a set. I felt fortunate that the tables weren't turned here, 'cause I'm not sure I could get out either with a set plus top kicker.