Won Big Saturday

Big win. I won $233 Sat., in 2 ½ hours. That’s pretty good. It was a soft table, but I was also playing very well. Playing very tight pre-flop. I was raising early with hands like A10 and AJ suited. Won them all. Hit a few sets which was key. I think the only showdown I lost was to a higher flush, when I made a straight on the turn, and it went runner-runner flush. The set hand was great, as I called 2 bets in MP with 77. The flop came down A-7-X. The preflop raiser bet, and I raised. I had a pretty good table image at this point. I think everyone else folded, and he called. The turn was another A and now I know he has a hand he can't get rid of. I put him on something like AQ. He bet into me with the big bet, and I raised again. He called, but what was surpring is that he bet into me again at the river; I again raised, and he turned over AJ.

As I said, I’ll be keeping very tight records for 2008. My current win rate is 15.53 BB/hr, where BB stands for the big bet. This is very deceiving for only 2.5 hours of play, but the goal will be to calculate a cumulative win rate over time to gauge my overall win rate. I'll to estimate how many hands are dealt in an hour to get a sense of how many hands I play over time.

I played horribly at our monthly game

I think the loose atmosphere and the drinking contributed, but my concentration was clearly off. I misread my hand twice, although it was in my favor and I won the hand both times. But it is poor etiquette and embarrassing to call out the wrong hand. And I missed opportunities to raise. I kept forgetting that the final bet is double. In one high/low game, when I was heads up, I made the huge blunder of going high, when going low would have guaranteed my half the pot.

The buy-in for these games is $40, and I went into the well for another $25. By the end, I was down a total of $25 which isn’t too bad. We again played 3-5-7 guts. It is a match the pot game with a $20 cap. Anyone staying in that loses pays half of the pot to the winner and half to the pot. The pot was about $146 when someone finally won it. Kind of a lottery game that I don’t really like, but it is nice to have the opportunity to win a lot.

The big winner of the night won about $216, and I think the big loser lost about $84. Didn’t get a chance to go to the casino on MLK day, but hope to soon.

Get busy living or get busy dying

That's Goddamn right. I love this scene from Shawshank Redemption. Haven't played since the last post, but I am playing tonight in my monthly home game. I'll be tracking my progrerss in this game as well throughout the year. I suggested we make a bonus jackpot for the player that wins the most during the year (minimum 80% attendance in sessions), but they didn't go for it. It's fun to play in this game, but the stakes are so low. We upped the last bet to $2. Still, I won $169 in 2007, so it's not too bad. Pretty soft. Really can't win without cards as you can't bluff someone out for a $1 call. Am hoping to celebrate MLK day at the casino.