Thing's I'm doing lately... an update

Things are meh at live poker.  I can’t seem to get my hands to hold up; last session I had KK, raised to $20.  Got shoved over by a short stack to $36.  Got 5 callers!!!  Couldn’t re-open so just called.  Beautiful flop of T 4 3.  I bet $125 and everyone folds.  Heads up with the short stacker who holds A T.  A on the turn and I lose the pot.  Another hand: I open to $25 with JJ against 2 limpers; I get one of the loose callers who snaps off my raise.  K x x.  Checks to me, I cbet $30.  He calls.  C/c turn & river and he flips Kh4h.  WTF?

I did make one really nice call with AK against my opponent’s AQ on a 3 spade Ace high board where I read his read of me (i.e. leveled him).  Action went something like I raise PF (~$15).  He calls.  A x x ss flop.  I lead for like $30.  He calls.  Turn is a spade.  I check, not sure whether he hit his spade flush & he leads for $70 and I call.  To me, that bet is very suspicious; a “go away” bet if you will.  I feel like if he wants value against me, he knows he has to bet around $40-50.  However, he’s almost potting it.  My thinking is on the river, I have to call all non-spade bets here (it would be a 4flush board on the river if there’s a spade river); if I don’t believe him for a flush or 2 pair on the turn, the hand will have not changed textures by the river.  River is thankfully a blank and I check again.  As somewhat expected, he shoves for $153 effective.  I think for a few and eventually call – he shows AQ and I scoop.  He says after the hand exactly what I thought during the hand: he put me on AK and thought he could get me to fold it.

Anyway, I’ve been occupying some of my time with online play.  A couple of buddies of mine have been slowly increasing their online play, which started me hankering for a bit more poker than my once-a-week routine.  So, I started back up a few days ago with around $10 in my account, and have been fishing around at the very lowest levels ($0.01 / $0.02).  I’m playing without a HUD, but I’m playing almost solely 6max, so there’s not as many players to track.  It’s a fun game; I’m finding that without a HUD, I’m not playing fully optimal (i.e. not picking up on loose stealers and 3betting them, and not picking up on wide 3betters against my steals), but I’m paying much closer attention to game flow and player types.  Granted the players at these stakes are absolutely terrible, but it’s fun to play with no pressure of “serious money.”  I’m handling up to 6 tables comfortably.  My goal is to run my bankroll up enough so I can play the $0.25/$0.50 games.  That level seems to be the sweet spot for the site I’m playing (betonline.ag).  At any rate, it’s good to be back in the mix online.

Although online blogging has slowed down over the past few years, I’m only writing when I have stuff to write about.  I’d imagine with the re-boot of the online poker, I’ll start to have more content / “what would you do’s”.  It’s nice to be writing semi-regularly, as it exercises my poker brain.

I think that’s it for now; I’m not promising anything, but I think I’ll have more frequent content updates coming.  Strap in for a little super low, low stakes hold’em!