Looking for spots

A Mental Health Friday off work brings me to the Cleveland Horseshoe for some afternoon $1/$2 poker.

You must always keep your eyes open for spots to steal a pot. Within my first orbit of the table, 3 players started to rack up to leave for a $2/$5 game. I was one off the button, with folds to me. I had a weak offsuit ace, but the big blind already had his chips in a rack and was ready to go. I raised, then fired flop and turn with ace high. He check-called. We checked river and he showed KQ. Good idea, bad result.

The same orbit, I bluffed into a player who flopped trips. That didn't work so well, either, and I was down $70 in my first 30 minutes at the table.

Soon after, I got into a high-variance megapot. I raised big slick, flopped the broadway straight, and got all in with what I already knew was a decent player. I figured him on a set, but he had Ace-Queen - top pair plus the nut flush draw. I was all-in as a solid 58:42 favorite, but certainly no lock, and a diamond could wipe out my first buy-in early. Fortunately, though, I held up. Too bad we couldn't run the turn and river twice - I feel bad when two good players get into unfoldable giant hands - it's a high variance result with little upside, when there's so much easier money to be made at a $1/$2 table.

Here's another interesting spot - the player to my right made several smallish $7/$8 raises throughout the session, and these were never ever strong hands. Queen-nine, pockets fives, etc. This time, I called his small raise with a suited ace and we went headsup to the flop. Before seeing the cards, he bet $6 in the dark. Now could this ever be a strong hand? The flop came a King-Queen-Rag, no flush draw, and I felt like it was a good time to pretend to have king-queen. I raised his blind bet and sent him scurrying.

It was one of the few solid "poker" moves I had to make all day. A table full of weak-tights and loose-passives made my decisions easy and put me in almost zero tough spots. I received a high compliment late in the session - the player next to me jokingly said "I think you're stealing chips or something: you never play a hand, but your stack just goes up and up".

I thanked him for the compliment. I also noticed I had built up a 135 big blind profit in five hours, felt a bit tired, and heard the weather was getting bad outside. This added up to an obvious cue to exit, which I did.