RaiseTheRiver

A very interesting article today from RTR member and cash game forum moderator Raffel69



One of these days
- a day in the life of a lowstakes player


Ok, here we go. It's saturday and I have a day off from work. Time to hit the games.

Session 1:
I started to play at 09:45 in the morning.
I wanted to multitable the $50NL at Betfair but the few promising tables were full. There was one $100 Potlimit table running (shorthanded, as usual), stuffed with some bad players. So I took my seat after I observed the table for about 10 minutes. There was one guy sitting with a monsterstack of $827, and by the way he played I really wondered how he could build such a big stack. Anyhow, three hands played and $29 down immediatly. The first key hand was me with A-Q in the CO with the big-stack in the BB. It gets folded to me and I raise pot. The button folds and so does the SB, the BB calls. Flop comes down Queen high, TP/TK for me. Two clubs showing and a Jack. I bet pot to push him off his flushdraw (I knew he's a chaser) but he calls. Turn comes the King of clubs for the flushcard. Check-Check. River is a blank, I don't trust him so it goes check-check again and he shows A-10 offsuit for the straight. Thank you Betfair. He called with a crap hand off position, ok he has a monster stack so I can understand that he is willing to gamble a little bit, but please explain how he can call a potbet with an inside straight draw? Anyhow, against my usual habit I decided not to reload. I thought I might just play with one bullet and that's my stack, $71. You see how the bad streak that I suffer these days affects my thinking? Not good.
Well, I stayed at the table until 11:15, carddead most of the time, but managed to take my money back with busting some $10 shortstacks who meanwhile have joined the table. Smallpot-poker, something I don't like, but good enough to stay break-even while I was waiting for playable hands. The one guy on my left, obviously a good player, and the luckbox bigstack made it impossible to play position. They called or reraised everything, anytime I made a play at the button. Against players like this, you can't stop being agressive, but you need some decent hands to beat them, and the decent hands never came. So I left the table with my stack at $104 for a phenomenal profit of $4.
Wasted time.


- Breaktime
thinking...
I am on a bad run at Betfair, after some real good succcess. Maybe I should step down and multitable the $20NL again. Very profitable games, I can make 50, 60 maybe 70 bucks each session if I ever catch some playable hands. If they only would remove the damn' doomswitch, what the hell is it that causes this bad streak? Ok, where do I have money? I am still waiting for my cashout from Pacific. What a crap site, I will never ever play there again. Three days now to get my money out and still waiting. Most of the roll still at neteller, the other part at Betfair, couple of bucks left at UB and FullTilt, also at DTD but I hate Crypto. Not in the mood to play pennypoker, today I want to make profit. Repair my damaged roll and my damaged mind a little bit.
What a [censored] game. Whenever I need it to get me away from all this [censored] that surrounds me, it let's me down. Well, if life gives you lemons kick her in the ass and tell her "I ordered a beer bitch"...


Session 2:
12:00 o clock. On to a little game at UB. I only have short money left there after my last cashout and after losing the most on some brutal turn/river bad beats within the last couple of days. Me and Ultimate Bet, it's a love-hate relationship. I love the software, I hate the tons of actionflops. On a good day, when their somehow strange system decides to let me win, I win a lot there. And on the bad days, it is impossible to hit a damn thing. Well, the last five days were bad days. However, on to a $25NL, all that I can affort with the $36 bucks I have left there. "It's a shame" I think, "hopefully nobody is watching me here".
It goes how it goes since days at UB, I lose the lot and I lose it with good cards on horrible suckouts. After the first beat I reload my stack with what is left, and I now sit with the amazing wealth of $22,41 at a $25NL shorthanded table at Ultimate Bet. A clear waste of money, and I don't care about winning or losing anymore. I have no problem with wasting what is left, and so I play some Kamikaze-poker. Stack goes down to $9 and up again to $45 and of course UB decides "this will not do" and sucks me down to $20 again. Then I stopped, angry and ashamed I leave the game and call it a day.


- Breaktime
Out for lunch in a fast food restaurant. Doesn't make me happy...
Back home, my girl returns from shopping, with a DVD in her hands. "See what I have here" she says, and she hands me the DVD. Rounders! Directors Cut! All I had was a low quality copy until now. I watch it and it is still the best pokermovie out there, even if it is a clichee.
I spend the afternoon with watching Rounders, eating some selfmade marmalade, thinking about my bad game.
What has happened? I was doing good, I was in the zone, I played on high concentration. What has happened that I lost my focus? I must get myself together and get back into the game somehow, or I will lose a lot...


Session 3:
Evening, 6:00 o clock.
I am back at Betfair and I am looking for some $50NL grinding. Again, all tables are full, except of one $100NL. THere are two players I have played against earlier, good players who seem to know what they do but also are predictable and they play ABC most of the time. And there are three unknowns. One seat is open, two of the unknowns with shorter stacks on my left, the two guys I Know on my right, perfect. I take the seat and bring $100 to the table.
First hand I play at the button, K-Q. It gets folded to me and I raise pot preflop, the SB calls and the BB folds. Flop comes Q-10-3 and the SB checks. I bet a little bit above 2/3 the pot. The SB thinks for a while and calls. Turn comes a blank and he checks. I think for a while, and without any read on the guy I somehow know 100% I am beat. I know he flopped a set of tens. However I must find out if I am right, so I bet half the pot. He thinks for a while and then minraises me. I now know my TP is no good and I don't have a chance to win the pot. And without any kind of information about the guy, I tell him in the chat "you have a set of tens", and I fold. He shows his cards: 10-10 for the set. He answers "amazing read" and I say "instinct".
Ok, a little bit down after my first played hand, but I know I am in the zone.
A couple of hands later I take somebodys stack with a flopped straight, and from there on I did not lose one single hand I played. I went straight into their heads, which enabled me to play some huge bluffs and to outplay them at any given time. They played scared and I knew it. My confidence came back, the confidence I missed for the last couple of days. And I crushed the table.
Left with $418 after only two hours of play.
It was not the pots I took that gave me my confidence back. It was the first good fold that I made since days.
During the game I made some monster laydowns, when I folded K-K postflop without an ace showing. Again I know I am beat by a set (eights this time), and I even folded a nut straight when the board paired on the river and one guy pushed me. I fold and he shows a full house. One hand later and I take his stack with a nut house myself.
Unfortunatly I ran out of time, had an appointment and promised the lady to spend some time with her in the evening, so I stopped and called the session and the day.
Solid profit, and back in the zone with playing my A-game.
Hope I can hold on to it for a while...