I finally played some no-limit for the first time on Tuesday. 1-2 No Limit at Imperial Palace to be exact. Standard strategy says you are supposed to buy in for the max, which is $300 and a great deal more than I’d be comfortable losing on a single hand. While the money is a bit out of my comfort range, the players are still terrible and there’s potential to make a lot of money with some patience, tight play, and average luck. That being said, I was dealt a plenitude of 6-2s and other stellar cards, and lost enough money to more than negate my record setting positive morning of 2/4 limit poker. This was a few days ago, but here are the hands I remember the best, roughly:
- I have 88 on the button and call a middle position raise to $5 to see the flop with four other people. The flop is something like J74, with one card higher than my 8’s and it gets checked around to me. With likely only the remaining jacks to worry about, I bet $15 into the $25 pot and take it down. I think this is was good play. Kinda risky I suppose, but someone would have to be playing a jack really poorly or slow playing a set to be ahead of me. And then I’d be screwed.
- I raise with AJ suited under the gun I think to $7, a guy in middle position raises all in to $21, a girl in late position calls, and I call also. The flop brings J86, I bet $20 into the $65 or so pot, and the girl folds. It’s just me and the all-in guy, so the last two cards are dealt. The river is another 6, and the all-in guy shows 6T or 56 or some sort of worthless crap to beat me on the river. That’s $60 I’d have liked to have.
- This one sucked and accounted for the great majority of my NL losses for the day. A guy in early positions raises to $5, the next guy calls, and I raise to $17 with KK. It’s folded around to a horrible, tilty player in a blind who raises $50 more. We’d only been playing for a couple hours at most and this guy had already lost his money twice and had bought in for at least $400. After he lost all-in the first time he went all-in again with something like JQ for a pair of queens and lost to a KQ. Not exactly an awesome all-in powerhouse. It was against the same guy as the first time, so I guess he was trying for revenge. It didn’t work. Anyway, he sucked and I called his $50 raise. Much to my delight an ace comes on the flop. He checks to me and for god only knows why, I decide to completely ignore his crazy aggression and inability to fold. I bet $50 into him and he check raises it to $100. He could have had nothing, but I was in no position to find out so I fold. And there went $117 in about 2 minutes. Um, darn. Not seeing an ace on that flop could very well have meant a 300+ dollar turnaround.
Tags: KK
