Variance

OK, I'm still in the stink-hole, downward-spiral section of that lovely term "variance". Or "Standard-deviation", whichever floats your boat; mine's sinking, however.

After having pat full houses outdrawn on me twice in Draw and just losing, losing, losing, I called it quits for the day and did some reading.

Later that night, Felicia and I went out to the Riverside. I started in the 2-6-spread limit HE game. She got a seat in the O8. Those tight old biddies that play the O8 wouldn’t play six handed. In fact, a couple would only play _eight_ handed. Come on people, its only ONE $2 blind!

To help get the game going, I moved over to the game when Felicia asked me. Of course, once I got to the blind, I flopped the _second_ nut flush, with a gut-shot straight flush. I bet out, and get called by one of the old ladies to my left. I don’t know if she has the nuts or a set when she calls, but I should have known when she still bet out on the river that she was happy with her hand. After that I had a small set in the BB. Following Ray Zee’s advice, I check it with 2 low cards and a flush draw. I at least saved some chips as the flop was checked and I failed to fill on the river and dumped it when the flush got there. Still kickin’ it in Omaha 8’s or better at the Riverside! LOL.

Felicia gets called to the tournament, and I couldn’t get my chips off of the Omaha table fast enough. I head back to the 2-6-spread limit game. I made a little come back after getting some chips with AA and KK. Then, I get KK again. UTG was about to limp, and then decides to make it 6 total. I made it 12 and he calls me. AJx on the flop, and he makes to go for his chips and checks. Now, the older crowd does this a LOT. I’ve seen some newer players do this as well, when they are trying to induce a check. So, does he have the Ace? Inexperience showing through and neural pathways bending his hand towards his chips before realizing he should perform the standard “check-to-the-raiser”? Or instead, is he really wanting a check, so that he’s faking to his chips as if he _wants_ to bet…a la, “acting strong when weak”? Since he only raised to 6 pre-flop, after pondering if he should, then not popping me back, I went ahead and bet, hoping he was on a smaller pair. After I bet and he called, I figured he either has the Ace, maybe two of them, or JJ. Ten on the turn put a possible straight on the board and he checked to me and I checked behind. Ten on the river again, again he looks like he wants to bet, but thinks better of it with a possible boat and possible straight. I’m pretty sure he has the Ace now and I know that he’ll call after I checked the turn, so I just show my KK. He turns over A4o. Ace-FOUR!? He raised UTG with this hand, and then called a max re-raise. So, in one hand, I pretty much lose what I had gained before with the AA and KK hands. Ugh.

After a bit of the tournament players got knocked out, we finally got a NLHE cash game going :) I have only, so far, played with “overs” buttons. This means that the game stays we usual, unless the only people left for contention of the pot have “overs” buttons. If this latter is the case, then the betting is No Limit. While I’ve been in games like this before, I don’t think that I personally have even been in a pot with just other “overs” players left. I’m just too tight that I don’t get involved as much. With just a single $2 blind, there’s no need to get too out of line. I do loosen up here and there. I DID play 79s UTG my last hand before going to the NLHE game, hehe. Made a boat and got called down all the way. (Yes, this was a rather loose call, but when 7 players on average see the flop, I will occasionally do it.)

I racked up my chips and headed over to the NLHE game: 2/4 blinds, no max buy-in. Bonus! I see that most people just have a couple hundred in front of them. I go ahead and buy-in for 340-350 (whatever the extra chips were from that last pot from the 2-6 ;). Only one guy buys in for a bunch, about 500. Fortunately, I know the guy and he’s probably not going to be involved with me unless he’s really got something.

I’m glad to see the one drunken guy at the table double through early off of Mr. Deep (from above). He flopped the nut straight and Mr. Deep caught up with the 2nd nut on the turn and calls Drunk-guy’s all-in. Only problem for me is that drunken guy starts bluffing off his money like crazy and I get no piece of it.

I only get one pot the whole time. I limped in the cut-off with K8s after seeing 4 limpers besides the blinds. I spike top-two and amazingly, gets checked to me. I pot it, hoping that with so many people in the pot that _someone_ has a piece enough, but all fold. At least it bought some blinds for me to see flops with their money ;)

After a while, I pretty much am hardly playing; combination of getting no cards and wanting to watch Felicia as she’s getting closer and closer and then finally in the money in her tournament. At least someone’s making some money around this household :p

Posted by Glenn