Category Archives: Poker

Poker at Empire

Started off well. Won about $5 and made my $12.50 bonus on for playing 61 hands.

Then I started playing terribly and was down nearly $30.

Tightened up my play and started raising when appropriate and now I’m up nearly $25.

I’m folding lots of hands I would have called before, like AXo (where X is lower than 8 or 9). Even suited I’ll toss these hands half the time (though I just called on A2s; I should have raised or folded).

Let’s see if I can keep this up.

3:30 AM Update

Yeesh. I don’t know what happened, but I was down by quite a bit. Maybe $35. I played smarter and made back $25 of it. Still above my initial deposit, so I’m glad of that.

My last win was pretty big, mostly because it was really close:

Seat 7: Phil
Seat 9 is the button
Seat 10 posts small blind (0.25)
Seat 1 posts big blind (0.50)

** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Seat 2 [ Qd Ad ]
Dealt to Phil [ Ac Kd ]
Dealt to Seat 10 [ Kc Jc ]
Seat 2 calls (0.50)
Seat 3 folds.
Seat 4 calls (0.50)
Seat 5 calls (0.50)
Seat 6 folds.
Phil raises (1) to 1
Seat 9 calls (1)
Seat 10 folds.
Seat 1 folds.
Seat 2 raises (1) to 1.50
Seat 4 calls (1)
Seat 5 calls (1)
Phil calls (0.50) <<< should have raised here
Seat 9 calls (0.50)

** Dealing Flop ** : [ Qh, 4c, 5h ]
Seat 2 bets (0.50)
Seat 4 calls (0.50)
Seat 5 raises (1) to 1
Phil calls (1)
Seat 9 calls (1)
Seat 2 raises (1) to 1.50
Seat 4 folds.
Seat 5 calls (0.50)
Phil calls (0.50)
Seat 9 calls (0.50)

** Dealing Turn ** : [ Ks ]
Seat 2 bets (1)
Seat 5 calls (1)
Phil calls (1)
Seat 9 calls (1)

** Dealing River ** : [ 2d ]
Seat 2 bets (1)
Seat 5 folds.
Phil calls (1)
Seat 9 calls (1)

** Summary **
Main Pot: $20.75 | Rake: $1
Board: [ Qh 4c 5h Ks 2d ]
Seat 1 lost $0.50 (folded)
Seat 2 lost $5 [ Qd Ad ] [ a pair of queens — Ad,Ks,Qd,Qh,5h ]
Seat 3 didn’t bet (folded)
Seat 4 lost $2 (folded)
Seat 5 lost $4 (folded)
Seat 6 didn’t bet (folded)
Phil bet $5, collected $20.75, net +$15.75 [ Ac Kd ] [ a pair of kings with ace kicker — Ac,Kd,Ks,Qh,5h Ac(kicker card) ]
Seat 9 lost $5 [ Kc Jc ] [ a pair of kings — Kc,Ks,Qh,Jc,5h ]
Seat 10 lost $0.25 (folded)

It’s kinda lame winning with KK, but then again, my hand was favored over the other two, so I’m okay with that. I wonder if I should have been more aggressive when that king showed up. At that point I had top pair and a nice kicker. I guess I was freaked about the possibility of pocket queens. More importantly, I should have raised before the flop again to try to weed out the weaker hands. I wonder what seats 4 and 5 had that made them spend a few dollars each on that hand…

Pot of the night

Click to see a larger version.

Hold’em

Seat 5 is the button.
Seat 1: Bandur
Seat 2: Me
Seat 3: Eris
Seat 4: Cory
Seat 5: Jay
Bandur posts small blind $0.05
I post big blind $0.10

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Eris calls $0.10
Cory calls $0.10
Jay calls $0.10
Bandur calls $0.05
I check
Pot is $0.50

*** FLOP *** [7h 5s 3c]
Bandur bets $0.15
I fold
Eris folds
Cory folds
Jay raises $0.15 to $0.30
Bandur calls $0.15
Pot is $1.10

*** TURN *** [7h 5s 3c] [5c]
Bandur checks
Jay bets $0.20
Bandur calls $0.20
Pot is $1.50

*** RIVER *** [7h 5s 3c 5c] [Ac]
Bandur bets $0.25
Jay raises $0.50 to $0.75
Bandur raises $0.50 to $1.25
Jay raises $0.50 to $1.75
Bandur calls $0.50
Pot is $5.00

*** SHOW DOWN ***
Bandur shows [2c 4c] (straight flush)
Jay shows [5d 5h] (four of a kind)
Bandur collects $5.00 from the pot and wears a shit-eating grin for all of five minutes
Jay goes outside to smoke a cigarette

I think that’s right. Pretty sure it’s right. The numbers add up, at any rate. The river action is definitely right.

Poker poker poker poker poker

I’ve been playing a hell of a lot of poker the past few days. On Saturday I played down at Hollywood Park and made $47 on top of the $100 I started with at the $2/$4 table. Saturday night I played at PokerStars at the .25/.50 table and lost about $14 or $15. Sunday I played again on PokerStars at the .50/1 and made about $11 on my $34. Today before our weekly game I played on PokerStars (.25/.50) and lost about $6. At the weekly game I made about $5. After the weekly game I played on PokerStars (.50/1) and made $17.

So… I guess I’m up. But when you compare this amount divided by the number of hours, it doesn’t really seem worth it. Especially when I’ve got other shit to do.