Hella Hold'em

Well... played poker for about an hour tonight, after going on a marathon grocery shopping spree. I like shopping late at night - the store is always empty. Sometimes you run into the problem of things being out of stock, but that's usually only on weekends. The midnight grocery run... good stuff.

I got about 180 hands in for my hour's worth of time, playing 2 tables on Full Tilt at $1/2 limit hold'em. Ended up down $20 - not coincidentally, I lost $18 on a hand where I ran into set-over-set. I'd flopped my set of 2's in a monster pot, and was beat by a turned set of 9's. Of course I raised it all the way (sets are gold, you know), but knew by the river that I was likely beat. I was. Oh well.

Other than that hand being a disappointment, my two goals for my last few sessions have been:

1. Ramp up the aggression, particularly preflop. If I know I'm going to call a bet anyway, lead out and do the betting (unless I fear a raise behind me and have VERY good reason to check-call... otherwise, quit with that crap).

2. Stop falling in love with top pair. I've been paying off the fishes with their goofy ass two pair and raggedy nonsense straights a bit too often lately. Stop doing it. When the fish come out of check-call mode and start betting and raising, be wary. The maniacs - they're another story. Ya just gotta grit your teeth and press on and hope they're bluffing their bottom pair. (It amazes me how often I see that). But stop falling in love with a hand that amounts to junk when faced with aggression from a passive player. Just dump it.

So... with that in mind, here are my numbers for tonight's brief session:

VPIP: 23.89%
PFR: 6.67%
WtSD: 37.07%
W$@SD: 45%
Post-flop aggression: 1.50

Compared to my baseline Full Tilt numbers from last week, I've accomplished my statistical goals for today, though could still be doing a bit better. (I'm comparing to 3.8% PFR and Post-flop agg: 1.04). I envy those with preflop raise statistics of 10%-ish, though I wonder if my playstyle is too tight to accomodate that sort of stat without raising every single hand I play. Well - I guess not, but I'd be raising a good half of them.

The main change I've made is that if I plan to play a hand, and it is folded to me in middle or late position (or maybe 1 loose limper if I'm in late position), I raise it. I won't go out of my way to raise a hand I wouldn't normally play, though. That seems unwise to me. Maybe in a tournament where blind stealing is more useful, but in a limit game, it's pretty rare that the blinds fold to one more bet - at least at the low limits I slum around in.

Anyway... that's my night in a nutshell. I'm going to miss the fishy afternoon players on Full Tilt now that I'm back to work for the semester. That's OK though. The fish come out at night too.