Sloe Times

So I'm still killing time in Neteller/cash-out limbo so that I can take advantage of some of the bonus opportunities on Party and I'm playing 5+1 NL SNGs on Paradise. I'm in somewhat strange waters here because I'm playing a lot more agressive than I usually do. In the recent past I would tend to limp in or check into the flop on anything less than a wired pair, 10s or better. This really didn't allow me to take advantage of weak tables or players... at least not before the flop. I think the fundamental philosophy I had been applying there was that if I limp in, it allows me to get away cheap if the flop misses me, and the more people involved in the pot, the more chips I'll take down when I win. Then I took a couple of days and read through a year of Lion Tales which was oddly enough inspiring on a couple of different levels. The one that relates to this is that in reading about the evolution of his game one of the things that clicked, and seems to work for me, is that being agressive (frisky is his word for it) does two things for me. The first is that it has actually made my wins worth more chips because the take downs have generally floated around the 1k area unless everyone folds out. The second thing is that, the agression seems to have kept the other agressive/table bullies on a short leash against me. This second point is the most pleasing to me because I can't imagine that anyone likes being pushed around, especially me. By being agressive I've been able to apply more control to the games I'm in and in general do pretty well. The guideline I'm using for my play is pretty simple, don't check or call. If my hand is worth playing, I'm raising. If I get re-raised then I may call or fold if I suspect a stronger hand. There are a lot of little side benefits to this in that in the past where I would have been in a pot against 5+ people by limping in, I'm now generally in vs. 3 or less opposers which I think improves my chances of taking the pot down in the first place. This also means that I'm probably in against 3 or so strong hands as well so one of the areas I need to work on is qualifying my 'playing' hands to make sure I'm not trying to make a move into a stronger hand with relative garbage. Fortunetly I think my player reading skills, such as they are, are getting better and that helps.

Here was an iffy play that worked out:
10 handed with blinds at 10/20 and I'm the BB. There are a few calls and then someone I've tagged as relatively weak raises it to 150. It folds around to me and I raise it to 260 (almost half his stack). It then folds around to him and he raises back 260 and I make it 60 more to put him all in. My hand was Qs, Jh. His hand was Qd, Ac. The only reason I think this was a questionable play is because it was QJo and I could have been betting into a big pocket pair, he obviously had some faith in his cards but my experience with this player didn't make any warning signs. The flop was 9h, Ks, and Ts followed by 2s on the turn, and Kh on the river. I hit my mark but was a bit of a dog before the flop.

Here was a play with me trying to be tricky:
5 handed with the blinds at 30/60 and I'm the BB. I'm dealt As. Ah and it folds around to the button who calls and the SB calls, with only two people in I figure I'll try to make it worth my while and raise it 180 which the button calls and the SB folds. This works for me and the flop wasn't scary with Jh, 4h, and 3s. Just in case he might be thinking about trying for a flush draw I bet it at 550 which is just above the pot and he calls. I'm not real happy about the call because if he is sitting on a flush draw, it's not outside the realm of possibility that he could hit. The turn is good news for me with Ad which I check trying to feign some weakness figuring that if he bets I'll either call or only do a min raise. He bets 160 which I raise to 320 and he calls again. I haven't been able to put him on a hand, I just know that I've got a good one and the possibilites are some sort of straight combination or a flush draw. The river brings Qd which takes care of the flush possibility, but that leaves the potential of KT or 25 for the straight. Then again, I'm not sure I can't imagine someone calling a 180 raise with 25. My thinking here is that he has either got it with KT, or he doesn't. Since I don't want to give him the chance to bluff me out I go ahead and bet 1100 which is about half the pot, but a little more than neccessary to put him all in. He thinks about it for a little while and then calls All-in. At this point I'm thinking I'm hosed, he had KT and chased it all the way to the winners circle. Instead, he turns over Jd, 9d. I'm not sure what I did to convince him that I didn't have his pair of jacks beat but I'm glad I did.