But in purple, I'm stunning

In contrast to the bad online $1/$2 play I've had recently, today was an OK day in brick and mortar land. Mainly, it's because I got to spend a day in brick and mortar land, but secondly, it's because I played well and cam out ahead.

At Palace's 8:30 a.m. tourney, I lost my $20 buy-in about 30 minutes into the tourney (10 minute rounds) when my AK of spades ran into pocket eights preflop, and never caught up. At Happy Days, I pushed all-in with AQo, and got called by... another AQo. And a pair of nines. The nines won it, two of us dropped at the same time.

But in cash game play at Palace, three hands in I raked in a monster pot (about $45, I think), when I missed my straight draw and flush draw, and only had a K♥ on the river. I continued to bet strong however, and the other two players who apparently also missed their draws, folded.

I took a small hit when I ran into a set of sixes, but came back with a win in the small blind with A9s, when I hit the flop (a 3, a 5, and a 9), then paired the ace on the turn, beating someone with A5.

In the end, I was up $70 at the $3/$6 game before I left, and won $10 with the Happy Days match play tickets, so subtracting out the $20 and $25 buy-ins, I ended up +$35 for the day. Vacation's great.

When I'm quiet, it's bad news

After the bad night in my last post, and then another bad night the very next day, I lost about two thirds of my online bankroll. Why have I been sucking at $1/$2 limit games? I've really got no idea, but the easy solution is not to play $1/$2 online for a while.

Instead, I've been playing $0.01/$0.02 no-limit, which has been an absolute blast. I'd forgotten how much fun online poker can be. See, I've been seeing every flop that costs me 4¢ or less, and then betting aggressive when I hit top pair, and have been really irritating the heck out of people when I end up taking down pots with hands like 93o when I hit two pair. I'd like to tell myself that I'm doing it to train myself to fold overcards post-flop, but really, it's because I like profiting big on unexpected wins.

Third worst night ever

Wow: one night, down $52.80. That's down $25.45 at 2-7 lowball, down $17.25 at $1/$2 limit, and down $12.85 at the $0.50/$1 limit table. A small Horse win only helped a little. The only worse online poker nights I've got records of was one last April at CDPoker (-$58.25), and the one that started my downhill run last November (-$52.95 at FullTilt). This actually puts me into the negative overall for 2007.

I've printed out some stats from PokerTracker that I'm going to look at tonight, and see what I might be doing differently. At first glance, the only I'm seeing is that I've been playing a little bit more aggressive on the flop but more passive on the turn and river. These differences aren't major, and perhaps not even statistically significant.

Maybe it's not my play, but the fact that the opposition is getting better. Is it time to bail? I've got $99 bucks left at PokerStars, and 973 "Player Points", which I was hoping to run up to 1200 to get a free shirt. Maybe it's time to get out. Maybe not. Another night like this, though, and I'm gonna bail.

Monday morning tourneys; quads over quads

It's another vacation Monday, so I played the morning tournament at Palace in Lakewood again. After a real donkey move of calling two all-ins with A♦8♦, and then pushing another guy in when I held AKo against his pocket sevens, I was done in about 20 minutes. I then moved over to the $3/$6 cash game, where after two hours of play, I was up $24, netting $4 for the morning.

Tonight, I hopped back onto the 1¢/2¢ no-limit tables at PokerStars, and playing four tables at a time, paid 2¢ to see every flop for an hour, regardless of my hand. That netted me $5.29 for the night, and this amazing screen shot. Too bad he didn't have any more money at the time.

Intentionally folding quads and seeing a royal

Playing at a 50¢/$1 horse ring game this afternoon I got dealt quad fives. Sadly, it was in Omaha, which made it absolutely worthless to hold. I folded it preflop. So sad. (See screen shot.)

Then later, playing in a 16 player horse tournament this afternoon, I got to see a royal flush being hit, for the second time ever in my life. I wasn't able to grab a screen shot, but did grab the hand history:

PokerStars Game #8394000261: Tournament #42783591, $1.50+$0.25 HORSE (Hold'em Limit) - Level VI (100/200) - 2007/02/11 - 18:26:05 (ET)
Table '42783591 2' 8-max Seat #5 is the button
Seat 1: Crisy Poo (2720 in chips) 
Seat 2: Irishgirl63 (2603 in chips) 
Seat 3: LauricT (2743 in chips) 
Seat 5: thirdcoma (1820 in chips) 
Seat 7: BigRiver77 (2114 in chips) 
BigRiver77: posts small blind 50
Crisy Poo: posts big blind 100
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to LauricT [2s Js]
Irishgirl63: calls 100
LauricT: folds 
thirdcoma: calls 100
BigRiver77: folds 
Crisy Poo: checks 
*** FLOP *** [Qh Th Kh]
Crisy Poo: checks 
Irishgirl63: checks 
thirdcoma: bets 100
Crisy Poo: folds 
Irishgirl63: calls 100
*** TURN *** [Qh Th Kh] [Jh]
Irishgirl63: checks 
thirdcoma: checks 
*** RIVER *** [Qh Th Kh Jh] [7h]
Irishgirl63: checks 
thirdcoma: bets 200
Irishgirl63: calls 200
*** SHOW DOWN ***
thirdcoma: shows [Ah 9d] (a Royal Flush)
Irishgirl63: mucks hand 
thirdcoma collected 950 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 950 | Rake 0 
Board [Qh Th Kh Jh 7h]
Seat 1: Crisy Poo (big blind) folded on the Flop
Seat 2: Irishgirl63 mucked [Qc 9s]
Seat 3: LauricT folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: thirdcoma (button) showed [Ah 9d] and won (950) with a Royal Flush
Seat 7: BigRiver77 (small blind) folded before Flop

Dropping a Benjamin, winning the Colts, and waking to good Mondays

• I played the $3/$6 ring game at Happy Days on Friday night, and lost $100. Ouch. Just never got good cards, and when my AQ hit a queen on the flop, I was doomed to the set of twos to my right.
• I had $6.93 left in my Bodog account, with no plans to use it for anything any time soon. I can't take it out until it hits $50, so I figured "what the heck", and put it on the Colts to win the Superbowl by 7. Cha-ching.
• Mondays are vacation days for me through April 16 (work has a use-it-or-lose-it policy and I've got ten days to burn), so I think my morning routine on Mondays is gonna be 1) Take the kid to school, 2) play in the Palace/Chips casino $20 8:30 a.m. tournament, 3) Profit! It worked this morning -- my fifth place finish netted me $28 (net +$8). I called an all-in with QJo with only two orbits worth of chips left, and ran into AJs, which hit an ace on the flop. There was talk about splitting the pot five ways before then (which I was in favor of), which would have been about $100 apiece.