Hella Hold'em

I had the chance twice this weekend to sit down at a $25NL table on Empire and play a lil poker. The first was against a bunch of strangers. I set up PT and watched a few tables till I had 20 hands on them, and chose one with a texture to my liking and sat down. I ended the day up one buy-in. Tonight, I found Otis, Pokeramarama, Iggy, and a few others at a table and sat down there. I'm not sure any of them know my Empire name (as I was previously playing through my Party skin). So I may still be incognito! (SirF and Glyphic know who I am though!) I pulled a modest profit of about $7 for my hour of play. Better than working at Pizza Hut!

I wondered, then, if there was anything in common between these two sessions. I hadn't been getting great cards, but they weren't too bad either. Lots of mid-pocket pairs. Some held up, a couple hit trips, and many were folded pre-river to daunting boards.

I've been trying to loosen my starting hands a teeny bit, mostly by playing a few more hands from late position. That has actually done well for me - those late-position hands were responsible for about half of my winnings the other night. I find that for some reason, I am much more "unconsciously conscious" of position online than face to face - something I wish came more naturally to me face to face. Maybe it is because online, it is very easy to see the button, with an aerial view of the table, whereas the flat view in real life is skewed.

My % voluntarily put into the pot was around 23% both days - a bit higher than the 18% that is my 2,000 hand average. My objective here is to continue to play disciplined poker pre-flop, but with great attention to position. Most of the "extra" hands I played came from no more than 2 off the button.

All in all, I'm pleased. Unfortunately, it's back to work for me on Monday, and the way my schedule looks, I probably won't get much poker time in till the weekend. Oh, sad!