normal poker night

Thursday night cash game went well. The live deck seems to like me more than the internet deck right now and hit me quite a few times.

Won a nice pot by raising AQ and having a smaller ace defend his blind, then having us both hit the ace. His "bet/bet/bet line out of position cost him a bundle". Raised from button with K9 and hit two pair. Called some flop bets with flush draws, and then.... wait for it.... hit the flush on the turn! Shocking, I know.

My biggest hand of the night came by raising up limpers with ace-nine, then having the deck come nine high with two diamonds. Both limpers, who called my raise, called my rather large protection bet. One had the flush draw, the other some type of pair, but neither of these players were likely to have tens or higher in a limped pot. I felt like I knew where I was.

Turn put a second three on the board. Mr. Pietzak could play a three and float me in some cases, but I looked right as him as he acted, and felt like he was waiting for diamonds. I put $20 in, leaving myself less than that left behind. He called again - the second player folded. I had to dodge diamonds and potentially every high card in the deck.

River comes a black king, and Mr. Pietzak checks a third time. No value in a bet here - he's not calling with busted flush draws, and he's trapping if he hit the king or has a three. I announce "I have a nine" and drag a big pot. He shows jack-queen of diamonds. My read was true.

After I show down a weaker "raise the limpers" hand like ace-nine in the cash game, people usually stop believing my raises for the night. Some of them start trapping, others play back at me with their own less-than-stellar cards. Since the deck was being nice to me for a change, I stopped playing the raise with limpers game in cases where I might do so - KJ, JTs, A7 - either following the limp chain or even folding in earlier positions.

In all, I didn't have to make many moves on this night - my cards were enough to double up my starting stack. Nice timing, as the monthly tourney is tonight and I just won my buy-in.

One more note - I started working on something new in my game - NOT looking at the flop as it is dealt, and instead looking at a player to see if I could see a reaction. No dividends on this night, and I didn't manage to do it consistently, but it is my new exercise.