It’s been a bit since I updated with something that whoever reads this actually cares about so I figured I’d throw some poker stuff up.

I hit my first ever Royal Flush yesterday (or was it two days ago?  I can’t remember..my brain’s a mess).  I’ve had a bunch of straight flushes before, quite a few of the King-high variety actually, but never the big one.  I actually had one earlier this year with K9ss or something..I shipped 4k effective ITM at 300/600/50 from the button and the BB snapped with TT and flopped quads, then I turned the straight flush.  It was pretty sick and he was pretty pissed :)  Sorry, sir.

The hand was pretty standard.  It’s 50/100 and prco123 open limped the CO like he’d been doing every hand.  We’re both about 20 or so blinds deep, and he’s a total monkey so there’s really no need for me to raise pre and have him call with 7 high or whatever trash he has and spike on me, so I just completed and nofearr, a solid regular, checks his option.  Flop comes a monster and I’m never going anywhere regardless of the action.  Even if we were to get all-in 3 ways I’m not really worried since prco is such a tardbox and he can have anything, which means I’m getting a ton of overlay with a monster draw.  Shit I could even be farther ahead than a flip vs him.  This guy didn’t really have a fold button in the 4 or 5 hands we’d played together in the game up to this point.

What kinda makes this hand a little goofy is my stack size.  Normally with these types of draws you want to be check/raising all-in with fold equity for a couple reasons:  1) you get the last bet in and make your opponent make a decision for all his chips..calling all-ins with draws usually isn’t the best idea, though in this case it wouldn’t really matter too much since the draws are so huge 2) you have more ways to win the hand than just hitting.  After all, you only have a draw and do need to hit if you end up at showdown, unless by some act of God you’re actually ahead the whole way.  By check/shoving with fold equity you can get whoever in the pot to lay down what is most likely the best hand (though not by much) 3) if the villain does end up folding to a check/shove you get another bet out of him.

But since I’m 20-ish blinds deep, check/shoving would be a tad overshovey.  I’m kinda ignoring the BB here since he’s not coming in without a pretty big hand anyways, and he’s just not that loaded often enough for me to really take it into consideration.  So if I check, if a bet does come it’s most likely going to come from pico just because players like him love to limp/bet any flop.  When he bets it’s most likely going to be 200 or so, and if I then shove 2000 to that it’s just goofy.  So all that means I just bet out at it planning to beat everybody in the pot if they shoved me.

I led for 200 and the BB folded like I expected him to.  I really want prco to raise the flop so we can just get it in but obviously he just calls.  So the pot is now 700 and the turn comes another K.  I’m not worried about him having a King because he probably would have raised the flop so my plan now is to check/shove.  Since the pot is bigger now I can shove pretty much any bet rather efficiently without it being an overshove.  So I check and he checks back.  I’m actually kinda puzzled at this point as to what he could have.  He would probably bet 2nd pair so that’s kinda out, and he’s goofy enough to bet a draw or 3rd pair, so I’m a little lost.

Good thing I don’t really have to worry about it when my money card hits.  Since he checked back the turn I can’t really put him on a hand that would bet this river, unless it’s exactly QJ or smaller clubs, so I pretty much have to bet..I can’t take the chance he checks behind with something that might call a small value bet.  So I lead for 300 but obviously the guy without a fold button somehow finds it in this hand.  Excellent.

So meh.  I’m fine with how I played it.  Guess I’ll just have to wait another 5 years for my next one to show it down.  There may be a bright side though.  Somebody went runner-runner Royal on me earlier today when I flopped a set so maybe Stars is purposely dealing more of them.  One (more) time, Lee!

I’ve been really lazy this month though.  Up to this point I think I’ve only played like 360 games or so.  With it being the end of the year, I’d like to get in enough to pick up a couple bonuses, namely a $4k and a $1.5k.  In order to get those, though, I had to switch back to my regular games and call it quits on the DoNs for now.  There just aren’t enough FPPs in them, and since they take just as long as regular games I figure I might as well just play where I’m very comfortable and pick up 30% rakeback in the process.

I’ve got like 175k FPPs right now since I’ve been so damn lazy so I need to get in another 1400-ish 38s to have enough, then another 1900 to get another 100k FPPs for the $1.5k (I’ll clear the $4k in like 1880 games or something), then another 700 to clear that.  Basically that means I need to play 4000-something 38s to clear $5.5k in bonuses by the end of the year.  Kinda LOL considering I’ve only played like 6.5k games this entire year.  I’m such a pile.

The good news is that I’ve been running pretty well.  Obviously 360 games is a joke sample but with higher profit totals I’ve been able to start mixing in more 60s in my sessions without risking too much of my roll, since I’m a roll nit.  I’ve had a couple really good days, along with a couple mediocre ones, so things are looking good for now.  I had a $1k day last week sometime in just 38 games at the 38s and 60s, and another $800 day today in 125 games.

With the roll climbing steadily this obviously means I can mix in more 60s and thus don’t have to play that many games to clear my bonuses.  If I strictly play 60s I only have to play like 2440 or so to clear both of them, and 2440 in a month and a half is a helluva lot more manageable than 4000 considering my history of worthlessness.  No biggie though..I’ll be happy if I can ship like $15k+ by the end of the year.  But it’ll be tough..every reg on the planet will be in the games in these last two months.

On the month I’m up like $2.5k or something so far and running at about 16%.  I’m taking tomorrow off and watching the Ohio State game in the morning, then heading down to my uncle’s house to help him with some computer stuff.  I haven’t decided if I’ll play Sunday yet since Sundays still hate me for some retarded reason, but we’ll see when we get there I guess.

That’ll do for now.  Kinda long but meh.  ‘Til next time..

O--H

--Goldy