Feeling Flush

Good evening readers, hope this finds you well and enjoying your poker and life in general.
Tonight's blog is about a hand I played last night, and I'm interested in your thoughts and critisicms on where I may have gone wrong.

Playing a 50c NL table at Party Poker (how brutal is that place?)
On the big blind I'm dealt Kh 9h, 5 players in the hand, couple of folds then a player raises to 2$, one caller, rest fold to me.

What do I do here? K9 suited is not the best hand I know, but nor is it the worst. I have 50c in the BB, and there's already 5$ in the pot, so decide to call another 1.50$. Was this my mistake?

Flop is Ah, Qh, 10h
Talk about dream flops, not only the nut flush but also one card off the Royal (unlikely, I know).

First to act, I decide to check (another mistake?) feeling that if I can get the raiser to bet, I re-raise and he can't call with those cards on the table, surely?

Our pre-flop raiser bets 10$, other player folds to me. What's your move here? What did I put him on - surely not AA with only a 2$ raise, maybe AK or even AQ, which means he's hit his two pair. I see only one bet to scare him away (and I do have the nuts on the flop) - All In with my 46$ remaining. Mistake number 3 maybe?

He calls instantly and turns over QQ. Uh oh, I think, my luck has not been very good these last few days, he has 7 outs to win (or 10 if the turn doesn't hit) - good call on his part?

Anyway, the turn shows a 10 and I close my laptop in dispair. I'm not sure there's anything I could have done to prevent this? If I called his bet on the flop, could I have folded after seeing the 10 with a nut flush?
I've closed my Party Poker account and moved the reamining 60$ to Poker Stars where I am playing as I write this. An expensive (110$) few days play and been on the wrong end of some miraculous bad beats - but am still pretty optimistic about my play. My poker account still shows about 500$ after Cathy took a big chunk out to get the loft done - so a bad week in the grand scheme of things, is only a bad week and the year still shows a healthy profit.

Today was a bit of a washout as well, Mia loved her splashing around in the pool for an hour, before I brought her back home and fed her eggs and toast, just as the rain started to come down, scuppering the plan for our trip to Dunham Park. Cycle trek has been rearranged for tomorrow night as well, though the forecast is not good for then either.

Cathy has gone out for the evening so I'm sat with a cold beer, watching the footy and playing poker (currently running at 40$ up) - ain't life great!?

Remember that positive mental attitude!

Lucky Heather anyone?

Well, this will be short, as I promised myself that I would be positive and not talk about bad beats - but after a night of what can only be described as brutal, it's gonna be hard!

No one wants to read about bad beats, I know. And it's not good for my positive mental attitude, but in poker terms, I have nothing else to write about. I'm trying hard to look at my own play to see where I can tighten up, and maybe do things different but if you flop a full house, or raise with AA and hit another on the flop, and still end up losing on the river to the 1/2% chance clown that was calling for his one-outer- what more can I do? The AA pot had over 70$ of my chips in - he called two big bets despite massive odds against him, and still hit. I ranted at my misfortune, which made me feel no better, but felt I had to say something. I made lots of notes on my opposing players, so maybe in the future, their ridiculous calls won't hit and my balance will be all the more healthy for it.

So my Party account currently sits at 160$ and a bit of time off is the order of the day. Maybe it's a freak run of bad luck, maybe I need to re-read my poker books and start again at limit and work my way back up.

Either way, if anyone has any lucky heather going spare, please send it as quick as you can!!

I have a day off tomorrow, so it's daddy day. First we are going swimming as little Mia now has two badges for her efforts, then it will be over to Dunham Park, a huge national trust place nearby that has animals and wide expanses of park for her run around in and a coffee shop for daddy to take a breather! Then I'm taking a group of local kids on a cycle trek along a disused railway line that's been converted to a cycle path and nature trail type thing.

Hopefully the weather stays nice, and it's just the poker tables I get rained on!

***** Hand History for Game 4285293994 *****
$50 PL Texas Hold'em - Table Tickle Box (No DP) (Real Money)
Seat 4 is the buttonTotal number of players : 6
Seat 1: FL__surfr ( $52.87 )
Seat 2: brettski_ ( $48.71 )
Seat 5: AsBibi ( $22.85 )
Seat 4: mias_dad ( $40.20 )
Seat 3: itchinan ( $52.25 )
Seat 6: Milankovitch ( $49.50 )
AsBibi posts small blind [$0.25].
Milankovitch posts big blind [$0.50].
** Dealing down cards **Dealt to mias_dad [ Kh Kd ]
FL__surfr calls [$0.50].
brettski_ folds.itchinan folds.
mias_dad raises [$2.25].
AsBibi folds.Milankovitch calls [$1.75].
FL__surfr calls [$1.75].
** Dealing Flop ** [ 7d, 9s, 7h ]
Milankovitch checks.F
L__surfr checks.mias_dad bets [$6.65].
Milankovitch calls [$6.65].
FL__surfr folds.

** Dealing Turn ** [ Tc ]
Milankovitch bets [$10]

mias_dad calls [$10].

** Dealing River ** [ Ts ]
mias_dad calls [$16.27].
Milankovitch bets [$16.27].

Milankovitch shows [ Th, Td ] four of a kind, tens.
mias_dad shows [ Kh, Kd ] two pairs, kings and tens.
Milankovitch wins $69.84 from the main pot with four of a kind, tens.

6th time in a week. Sigh.
I shouldn't have called the river, I know, but couldn't believe it could happen again.

Footnote to previous post

OK, only fair to report that, after half an hour's play tonight, hit AA and my all-in bet was called by player PLONKER (his name has been changed to protect the innocent) with pocket 3's.

AA stood up and was counted and netted me a good 70$ profit. So with my bonus from the lovely people at Party, and this hand see my bankroll at 285$ - so in a much better mood than when I posted the blog below (by heck, did I sound depressed!!).

Good luck on the tables, will leave you to ponder my incredible mood swings and bid you farewell :-)

Grrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!

Grrrrrrrrrrrr!!!

Who would like to guess which is the odd one out from the following hands:

K 9s, 4 4, 8 8, Q Q, K K, 10 5s, A J, A Qs

The answer is that the above hands all beat my AA last night at Party, with one exception. Yes, I was 'lucky' enough to be dealt AA 8 times in my 4 hour session on the tables last night - but unfortunately for me, only once did it win.

The hand it beat? K K.
All the rest lost to flushes, 2 pair, sets, str8's - you know the story - and as most hit on the turn or river, the losses that go with it.

Add this to my flopped straight, and my all-in called by someone with top pair, who then hit runner, runner for a full house, and I was not a happy bunny indeed.

My 236$ bankroll dropped to just over 100$ and I was beginning to think I should take a break from this game. The bad beats seem to be coming thick and fast at the moment, and this could be an opportune moment to give the game a break. I'm a fairly emotional type, and tend to act on the spur of the moment and the emotion rather than sit down and think about things rationally and decide tomorrow. Hopefully this comes over in my blogs and not that I'm a whining, sore loser - as that is not the case.

Had a drink and decided to sit back down for half an hour or so and managed to claw back some and now my bankroll sits at 170$ - conincedentally, what I started my Party account with so I guess I've not really lost anything. This was mainly down to stupid play by others (calling my bets with 4 cards to a flush on the table, with just top pair, when surely no one would bet big unless they had a high 5th card, etc.) rather than any great play on my part. Can't be many hands left to clear my bonus, so may just get this in the bank and take a break.

It's the missus' birthday this weekend, and we are out for a meal with friends on Friday night and then her birthday is on the Saturday, so that will involve her putting her feet up for the day whilst Daddy takes over. This should give me a poker free weekend, and chance to reflect a little on the last weeks events on the tables.

Left for work at 9.30am this morning and Mia was just getting up (lazy thing!!) so managed to get my cuddle before I left, which, with her sleeping habits, isn't always the way.

Which reminded me that at all times, I must try and remember what's really important in life, oh, and learn to fold them damn aces......

Old MacDonald had a Farm

Good evening all, hope your poker is good and your weekend went well. Any West Ham or Gretna fans reading, I'm so gutted for you. Both deserved to win and yet lost in the unluckiest way possible. If it's any consolation, remember you were there, had the chance and the experience of being there, and many never have that.

Anyway, back to my little life. Had another bad day at the tables last night after reaching my laptop target. Hit another two of those runner, runner 4 of a kind, at the same site as the previous three, so decided to instantly withdraw all my remaining funds back to my bank and think about things a little. Maybe it was an over reaction, but if you get a feeling, it's sometimes wise to act upon it, and it seemed the right thing to do at the time.

Decided later that instead of having 4 accounts at seperate sites, chose Party Poker as my main one and emptied all the others. This may change over the coming days/weeks, but for now this is what I'm doing. Put $170 dollars in the account and after 2 hours of play earlier, up to $236, so feeling justified at the moment.

Prior to this, had a pleasant lie in as Mia didn't wake up till 10am (yes, that's 10am) so I took the opportunity to earn a few brownie points and told the missus to stay in bed for an extended lie in and I'll get Mia washed, changed and breakfast-ed. Then took her for a walk to the park (under strict instructions that if she came back with another bruise, I'd lose certain body parts). Had to put her in the baby swing and then walk around with a carrier bag cleaning up empty beer cans and bottles and other rubbish that littered the place (did we do that when we were teenagers?) before it was safe for her to do her usual 30 laps. Whilst she had her lunch and played with Mummy, managed to grab 2 hours on the tables as mentioned above.

The best part of the day came later when my constant reciting of Old MacDonald had a Farm has finally sunk in. In the cutest little 2 year old voice - she's got the E I E I O bit down to a tee, along with the Moo-Moo and Woof-Woof bits - and Daddy was very proud!

Can't think how to realte this to poker so I'm off to the tables, 100 raked hands off getting a 50$ bonus, so if I manage to hold my own, could have doubled up my initial deposit.

Good luck in all you do!