All the reasons for cashing out of my online poker account remain true. But that Empire reload bonus tipped things in the right direction for me to make time for poker. I’ve only played just over a hundred hands, but so far I’ve made a few big bets here and there, playing 1/2 and $25 PL, and I’m 1/25th of the way to my rake refund. I checked PT to see how much I’ve paid in rake, and it’s a whopping $700+ since I started keeping track back in mid-March. The way I see it, Party/Empire/Multi owe this to me.

Tonight I got more than my fair share of playable hands–oh yes, I’m being set up (once again) for the fall. But while you’ve got the advantage, you’ve gotta push it as far as it will go. That said, the 1/2 table I spent the most time at tonight was tough. Some good players there, which is not usually the case at the Party skins. But this late at night, I’ve tended to notice the limit tables are full of maniacs or sharks. I won some big pots, but I also paid a lot into some pots I didn’t win. After a few of those, I decided to change gears and move on to the pot limit tables. There I did much better, offsetting my short-run losses at the 1/2 table. The two big pots I won were those where my victim flopped the nut straight or flush draw and decided to raise on the draw that never completed. My gut tells me that this is not a good strategy. And as HD will tell you, at a low-limit table on Party (or any aquarium), with a family pot at stake, this is definitely not optimal strategy. Of course, I was playing PL and after the drawfish raised, it became heads up. So all you poker strategists out there, if you have any thoughts on semi-bluffing with a raise in PL or NL where you’re unlikely to get more than one or two callers, let me know. Since you have a greater range of what the bet could be, this certainly does open up possibilities. I suspect that these will depend heavily on your read of the other guy’s hand and betting style.

This brings me to the last thought of the night. I really need to mix up my play. Not to the extent where I find myself severely short stacked, but every so often I need to throw in something the table hasn’t seen before.