Cleared the Party 20% bonus and netted a whole $29! That’s with the $200 bonus, mind you. Oh, man.

Posted some heavy losses at the 2/4 BBJ tables. High -EV. I guess when you have a lottery-type deal attached to those tables, it tends to attract the worst of the gamboolers. I may be wrong, but it seems like you have to be a fish, a maniac, or a rock in order to post profits on those tables. Either that, or catch the variance upswing when your bankroll allows.

One of the most successful players I saw at these tables was a maniac who raised virtually every pot. He’d sometimes have cards, sometimes not. Sometimes got lucky, sometimes not. But he owned that table. He was very good at playing the players. After a while, he never raised if I limped, but raised when I was a blind. Aggression from fellow maniacs was met with aggression in kind, but aggression from me or the fish usually meant a fold, or a call and a fold on the next street. He’d also fold on the river a lot after getting raised. I think he knew damn well what he was doing. See The Cards Speak and Poker Nerd for more on the virtues of being a maniac.

I did have a great winning session at a 2/4 non-BBJ table today: +22BB. That and some other small wins made my 2/4 losses equivalent to a 20BB buy-in. I’ve done worse, but I really should be more careful with table selection. My game’s not currently equipped for handling skilled mania, though I’ve found that the rules of 6-max apply when faced with a maniac in full-ring: catch a piece of the flop, push back on the turn (hopefully improve there, too), and see what happens. The less-skilled of the maniacs will crumple and fold. High variance, that’s for sure.

And so we come to NL. Down a little over a buy-in from my NL play, but that’s due largely in part to the 4 buy-in losing session a couple nights back. I don’t think we need to go over that again.

Speaking of NL, I was down a few cents from my Party deposit earlier tonight after a thoroughly -EV session of Omaha 8, so I decided to play some NL. ‘Cause I couldn’t cash out of Party with less money than I deposited. Oh yes. I am so results-oriented.

Party dropped me on a NL table with the biggest NL maniac ever. I think he set the table on tilt. After I saw him suck out aces on the turn against someone else’s queens, I knew that if I were ever ahead, I’d have to push all my chips in. So I did. Three times. The first time I doubled up (QQ vs. Q5?!). The second time I was pushing my two pair (KJ) against a straight (KQJT9) and lost everything (though truth be told, I tried to slowplay the flop and got spanked by giving away the free turn card). The third time he doubled me up again and I won what was previously in the pot (AAJJ vs QQJJ). The net result was that I was down slightly for the evening. Then he left before he could double me up a third time. Crap.

Luckily I later caught a 5-outer against two pair (I thought this other loose aggressive player simply had a worse kicker and put him all in… oops). Then I flopped a straight and made an underbet in late position. One of the blinds raised 8x my bet. It was folded to me and I reraised to put him all in. When the 3-flush appeared on the turn I was worried, but I was good: he risked all his chips on top pair, deuce kicker. Oh the humanity.

So I don’t know. This whole Party bonus whoring experience has been just a series of -EV sessions. I’ll still play with the damn bloggers, but be a little more careful about drinking and pushing. And I’ll stay away from the goddamn BBJ tables. But now that I’m moving on to Empire for their reload bonus, that evilness won’t be able to tempt me. I still think I suck at limit. And in NL I happen to catch some good cards and flops and make ’em work for me. There’s probably only one or two bluffs per session, and I only catch someone out on a bluff a couple times per session, so how good am I really?

I should change my Empire name.