Mixers, 5/1/07

Finished my first run at Oregon Trail Poker in 16th place (over 250 players) so I was pleased with that. Still have not decided about playing in their big tourney....we will see. Meanwhile, I am trying to get untracked and start playing good poker again.

The plan going in; no limping, pretty much premium hands only, raise those.

First hand Under the Gun limps, Roman folds, I look down at A/Q. With blinds of 25/50 and 1 in I raise to 300. I meant to do 200 but...whatever. 2 callers including UTG who I read as only calling because he had 50 invested. Flop was Queen and rags. 300. 1 caller. Turn, rag. 300. He folded.

Second hand Roman folded, I had A/J. Raise 200 as first into pot. 2 callers. Flop was rags. Raise 200. Just one caller. Turn was another 200 and he folded.

Third Hand, A/6. From UTG raised. Got couple callers. Raise on flop bought the pot.

Folded a few garbage hands but I had set the tone...everyone was raising so folding was correct anyway. After a while people settled down and were limping. I limped here and there but not consistently. That was a mistake. I had established an aggressive image but with cards to back it up then trashed it away. Worse yet...had I been limping every hand I would have been going to town as I hit numerous flops very, very hard...after I folded. Had I been playing Doker I would have had a HUGE stack but by playing correct I had very little.

The blinds were coming fast and I got down to about 1200. I picked up K/J off and after UTG limped I went all in, 2 callers. Paired them both and tripled up. Then I allowed myself to limp a couple times when I knew better...and every time I got a decent hand the guy to my right went all-in. Stopped limping, still had about 2000.

Picked up A/K. Raised it 4 times the blinds. Guy to my left had limped under the gun. He called. Flop was all rags, 10 high. I had blind checked (as I did every hand I was first to act; that was for consitency). He counted off my last 1175 and put me all in. I thought about it quite a while. I had never seen him raise without a decent hand and watched him fold when he thought he was beat. I decided he had a pair or trips and folded. He flashed pocket 7s. Good read, but was it a good fold? Probably. I thought he might have trips and if so I was drawing dead for all intents and purposes. If not I had 6 outs to his 2 for a net of 4 outs, 2 cards to come, about 8 percent...yeah, I am glad I folded. They went rabbit hunting and I would have hit my ace on the river to double up. Still glad I folded.

Unfortunately, that meant I was down to 1175 and pretty quick went all in with A/10. It got 4 callers so I knew I was in trouble and someone hit 2 pair to put me out.

I actually played pretty well overall, the 4 or 5 limps were all with connectors, whether suited or not...and my reasoning was sound, I want more callers. However, if I am going to limp I need to limp, otherwise I need to play those just as I do my premium hands.

I also learned I am not nearly as good playing the tight, correct hands style as I am playing the more loose play everything style. I am going back to that.