The Last Two Days or Small Wins Are Good Wins In My Book

The last 2 days I’ve put in around a total of 3 hrs. I am currently on night shift and get off my 12 hr shift at 7 am. I get as many 50 NL tables as are running at that time of the morning – usually 3 to 4. Both days I hit a few nice hands early on. 1st morning my SC’c hit their flush on the turn and the reraise brought me $25 or so. This morning I got a little action with a couple of high pairs PF where the players just had unsuited high cards and were willing to go for it. I also got lucky and turned my semi-bluff small pair into trips on the river and took out a higher pocket pair that just kept smooth calling my raises on every street. This morning when I won these 3 nice hands my opponents didn’t have much of a stack when we tangled. This probably had a lot to due with their original willingness to mix it up with marginal holdings in the first place. It might be coincidence but there seems to be a lot of guys playing this style in the mornings. They just keep reloading the minimum or ½ max and are willing to battle with marginal hands. Often playing fairly aggressively with multiple over-cards to their pairs on the board. Weird. They seem to want to gamble and see how their luck is going to run for the day. But hey if I keep seeing these ATM’s, I might just have to start getting up in the morning.

The biggest hand in the last 2 days has me wondering a little. I think I over-valued my hand and lost a buyin, but if I had won, I wouldn’t be thinking that way. I have QQ. The pot is opened PF before me for $2 or so. I make it $5. He calls. Here I played it solid. If he had pushed here I would have folded my Q’s. I think that would have been the prudent play it that case – no reason to get $45 more dollars when he is telling me that I’m behind. OK, he doesn’t – he calls. He could easily have checked here with AA, KK, or AK, which 2 of those have me crushed. Me? I reraise with AA or KK PF and put players to the decision right off the bat before they get a look at the flop. AK I fold 30% of the time and check the other 70%. Some guys are more agro and reraise with AK, but that’s not me. He could also be playing mid to small pairs hoping to see the flop fairly cheap after his PF raise was upped. J96 flops. He bets $6; I raise to $12. He then puts another $6 on top of my raise. Here is where most people would slow down and go into the think tank. He is obviously portraying AA, KK, or a spiked set. But I have seen plenty of people at these stakes play AJ strong here. But would he have played the way he did PF with AJs or AJ? Not likely, but I’ve seen it more than once. So basically here is where I think I made my mistake for going any farther with the hand. Am I being weak? I then push for my last $30 or so. He insta-calls and at showdown scoops the pot and my pride and good zone mood with it. Bad push? I think so and not because I lost, but really there was pretty much of nothing that I beat here by the way he had played the thus far. Only a bluff or semi-bluff are really all I have beat here. I should have just let it go. $50 on this hand in this situation – I lose more than I gain. Damn it, lost profits again. I really must plug these leaks. I couldn’t have save $20 of it here, but the other $30 I just gave away.

So with that big hand lost, I still made $30 or so a day. That equates to $20 an hr, and I can live with that