report from the lines - still getting killed sir.

A study in 2 hands - Both a pair of jacks under the gun.

Hand 1 - JJ under the gun. Raise 3x, 2 callers. Flop comes K45r, the caller from the blinds bets the pot. I go away. Not knowing anything about his play, I simply have to believe he called this raise and hit the king.

Hand 2 - 2 orbits later. JJ again, again under the gun - let's try a limp/reraise. No raise comes - 5 callers instead. Great. Flop comes 234. I bet 200 into 300, and a beginning player shoves it all in. I figure him for a set, an ace with a gutshot, or an "overpair" under my jacks. In the end I decide I'm ahead of his range and call. He's got A4 for the made straight. Nice job.

Strange happenings, but it's not even 9pm, and I'm gonna keep playing.

Update: Next tourney, whittled down again with no cards, UTG player opens for 3x, I have JJ again and shove over. He's got KK. Buh-bye.

I know there's no right way to play jacks, but this is getting silly now. Some of it bad luck - some more bad play by me. With the last JJ, the under the gun raiser was a good player with pretty low stats (12/8, maybe?). Anyway, I know he's on a pretty good hand there, but even if he's truly raising top 8% - I'm still 56% to win. With 13 BB and perhaps a bit of fold equity (AQ/TT/KQs?), that's a decent play, right?

I know I have some problems in my game that need fixing, but this isn't all about those problems. Just some variance having fun with me. 1 cash in my last ten tourneys - and the awesome start to my month has regressed back to merely good.

In blog news - my feedburner stats say that I went from 9 subscribers to only 2, which kind of bummed me out. Not that I'm really writing for anyone but myself, but I hoped (like most bloggers) to find some kindred spirits out there that might find some interest in my writing.

Maybe (probably?) I'm simply whining too much right now. I know for sure that I played down the terrific start to my month - brags aren't much better to read than whines, and of course I don't want to jinx the lucky roll (I've apparently failed in preventing that jinx).

Finally, in family news, we had our last indoor soccer game this afternoon. I help the coaches of my oldest daughter Gabby's U13 travel team. For some reason we ended the season playing a club team (very high level), and we ended up playing to a 4-4 tie. Head coach Rich was very proud of the girls, as was I. In a week or two we resume the outdoor league - so practicing in the cruddy Aprile Cleveland weather will become a new thing to look forward to in upcoming weeks.