MATH Pimp, and Fun With Cash Hands

OOOooh boy, another glorious Monday. Hah. Seriously though, it has been so long since I had a day like Sunday at the cash tables. Far too long. Sunday night I won more than three buyins at 2-4 nl, which is my biggest one-day score in over two months and my first really solid set of multiple sessions in probably half that time. After a ho-hum weekend at the full tilt cash tables -- and a failed attempt for a quickie trip to the Borgata for some live poker action on Saturday night -- I was a monster on Sunday. I kept the pots small when I was weak, I got people to call big bets when I was big, and I hit some effing cards in key spots. I won about a full buyin when I made a surprisingly nut flush on the river with my Q♠. I won another when I managed to flop top two and turn a boat. I got people to call my river value bets on five or six occasions over a a few tables over a few hours.

And the best part about my cash game play last night? I didn't make a single major mistake, which again is the first night I can honestly say that in quite some time. I've had plenty of up nights recently, but not totally major mistake-free ones. Over probably a thousand hands of poker on the session overall, I never lost a pot worth more than about a quarter-buyin or so. I won several that big, but I never lost one. If that ain't the key to playing profitable poker, I don't know what is. Win lots of big pots but only lose small ones. Wtg me.

Btw the actual best part about my play on Sunday was the 4-for-4 I went with pocket Aces. This brings my total since I started using pokertracker to 41 wins in 41 times dealt pocket Aces. Average pot size is still over $85 won per time dealt the best starting hand in holdem. And keep in mind, this is over 13,500 hands, meaning that I should have been dealt pocket Aces my 1/221 of the time, representing 61 times I should have been dealt pocket Aces over this stretch. I have gotten them 41 times. I guess my other twenty went straight over to this guy. Probably all of them in the first hour of the MATH or some blonkament like that.

Poker gods come smite me now.

Speaking of smiting poker gods, don't forget tonight is the latest Mondays at the Hoy tournament on full tilt!



10pm ET tonight, under the "Tournaments" tab, then under the "Private" tab. Password as always is "hammer". Please be there to call my preflop allin with J9s so that more people can leave me comments suggesting that I would ever call an allin with J9s and then defend it on the blog. Ahhh, guys on losing streaks using my blog to work out their frustrations. You gotta love the freedom of the blogiverse.

Before I forget, I understand that Neteller is officially accepting withdrawal requests again for those of us with money still trapped there after a prolonged period of inaccessibility. My suggestions are (1) get in there as quickly as possible and make your withdrawl requests, and (2) I'm still not expecting to ever see that money again until I actually have it in my hands.

Also, a quick question I wanted to poll the readers on. So we're about to reschedule the full tilt freeroll again after last week's server issues froze the event with 51 players left out of 56 runners about 45 minutes in. Now we're going to rerun the thing one day soon. What is everyone's view about including or excluding the 5 people who had busted out in the rerun of the freeroll on full tilt? Do we start it up with all 56 players again and just take a no harm no foul approach? Or do we rerun it with just the 51 players starting fresh who were still alive at the time of the outage last week? Leave your thoughts in the comments if you feel strongly one way or the other.

Oh yeah, it's been a full week and now two weekends since the final installment of the Harry Potter series came out, so I assume most of the hardcore among you have already finished the story by now, making it ok for me to at least mention here. I am determined not to give away any spoilers of any real value here, but if you can't take the possibility then you can skip ahead to the next paragraph. Anyways, all I will say here is this: I really enjoyed the book. I loved it even, just like I've loved all of them. This shit is like Lays potatio chips, really, or kind of like when you're flipping channels and suddenly find that Shawshank Redemption is running on USA again -- once you pick it up I challenge anyone to just put it down. I could not stop reading the book, just like with all the Harry Potter books, and I really give credit to J.K. Rowling for creating this really amazing and interesting story out of her own head like she did. FWIW, I did think the final climax of the book, the final confrontation, was a bit anti-climactic, but then that is probably more or less always the case whenever you end a story as epic as this tale has been. But the shit is great, there is just no two ways about it. If you're interested, don't believe any of the shit you read out there on the Internets -- I myself heard lots of negative stuff from the initial reviewers on the first day or two. The book was incredible, just as good as all the others, and it made for a great ending to truly one of the most awesome stories of my lifetime. I've spent what, the better part of 15 years of my life reading these books, and talk about time well spent. Rowling is my MVP of the summer as far as I'm concerned.

Anyways, back to some poker, here was a fun hand which I think is a good exercise in hand reading skills. We're playing 6-max holdem cash with 2-4 blinds and a $400 max buyin on full tilt. I've got KJo on the button and the action folds around to me preflop. I put in the standard pot-sized semi-steal-raise to $14, and just the big blind calls my bet for an additional $10 into what becomes a $20 pot. The flop comes 6AQ with two clubs. My opponent checks the flop, and I check it right back after a few seconds pause.

The turn brings an offsuit King, giving me 2nd pair decent kicker. This time my opponent leads out small:



This bet seems a bit post-oaky to me, and in any event I have 2nd pair decent kicker so I'm not laying down to a minbet. I call. The river then brings a second Ace, and my opponent bets out a bit more this time:



This card doesn't actually hurt me since it is offsuit and therefore I am still behind now if I was already behind before the river, and I am still ahead now if I was already ahead before the river card. So do you call here? Who is folding? Anybody raising in this spot?

See you tonight for Mondays at the Hoy on full tilt! Newcomers welcome!!