A Little Poker Music

I rarely play at FTP these days, primarily because I have so little in my account ($64 or so); yet, I have been visiting the site the last couple nights to watch some pros play and hopefully gain some insights into, among other strategies, a more aggressive game. However, last night there were no pros playing, and the capped 500NL game seemed quite passive, so I jumped into a game for which the lobby stats said was an active game. With nearly half of my FTP bankroll in play, I knew that I would have to play relatively tight, and take it down when I could. As it turned out, neither my cards nor the action allowed me to play as tight as I had planned, yet I was not disappointed. I will use my last hand (leaving on an up note) to highlight the vehicle for the 40% stats that lured me in the first place.

Full Tilt Poker Game #9277719310: Table Constantine - $0.10/$0.25 - No Limit Hold'em - 3:16:56 ET - 2008/12/02
Seat 1: jazzparker55 ($24.30)
Seat 2: Gerrard37 ($25.15)
Seat 3: bastinptc ($24.65)
Seat 4: Gresiuk ($20.05)
Seat 5: Hooverrrr ($24.65)
Seat 6: FoolTiltPoker ($26.35)
Seat 7: WielkieG ($9.75)
Seat 8: 1little2little ($5)
Seat 9: Jelionwyn ($6.40)
FoolTiltPoker posts the small blind of $0.10
WielkieG posts the big blind of $0.25
The button is in seat #5

It didn’t take me long to figure out the texture of this table. FoolTiltPoker, with his avatar of a ninja, knew what he was doing. He was also easy to read. A strong bet meant he had it, a c-bet meant he whiffed. Shortly before this hand, I had called his early position 2.5 x BB raise with 10Kd. The flop came with two diamonds. He led out with a half-pot bet and I doubled it, to which he folded.

Gerrard37 was new to the table yet looked to mix it up. And, aside from myself, jazzparker55 was the only other player involved in a fair number of hands. He was my target.

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to bastinptc [Ac Qc]
Jelionwyn folds
jazzparker55 calls $0.25

Jazz had been making this move a lot. He was limping with about 80% of his hands, and I can’t remember seeing him raise preflop, unless he was heads up. If he limped and someone raised, he would call the raise about 75% of the time, and if he were heads up, he would reraise about 50% of the time. I anticipated either.

Gerrard37 folds
bastinptc raises to $1
Gresiuk folds
Hooverrrr folds
FoolTiltPoker folds
WielkieG folds
jazzparker55 raises to $1.75
bastinptc calls $0.75

He did not disappoint.

*** FLOP *** [9h Ad 7c]
jazzparker55 bets $3.25

As I wrote above, jazz limped into a lot of pots. Postflop, his standard move would be to bet the minimum, encouraging those on a draw to continue. If the river was dry, he would then bet about 2/3 of the pot to take it down. I had been involved in a few of these cat and mouse hands with him, figuring that if he was giving me excellent odds, then so be it. I figured him to be a calling station, which is both bad and good. Bad because when they hit two pair with crap, it makes it difficult to play a big PP, TPTK and the like. Good because they often do not know when they are beat. His bet and subsequent reraise told me that he had an A or a medium PP (I had seen him open large with 10s in the hole).

bastinptc raises to $6.50
jazzparker55 has 15 seconds left to act
jazzparker55 calls $3.25

I reraised here to determine where I was at in the hand. His call really didn’t give me any information. I suppose I could have raised more, eliminating a call altogether, yet I could not rule out pocket 7s or 9s and I am reluctant to get it all in with one pair.

*** TURN *** [9h Ad 7c] [Jc]

More of a pickle here for me. I have seen more than one bad player over-value AJ.

jazzparker55 checks

Ultimately, I chose this to be a good sign, plus I now had a nut flush draw. He had been leading out and had stopped. He whiffed; either that or he got lucky and was ready to reraise me all in. I was about to find out.

bastinptc has 15 seconds left to act
bastinptc bets $9.75
jazzparker55 folds
Uncalled bet of $9.75 returned to bastinptc
bastinptc mucks
bastinptc wins the pot ($16.05)

I suppose I could have stuck around for more of the action, for I assume the game would have continued in much the same manner. But then again, a room like this has a level of variance to it that my paltry roll cannot tolerate well. I had my fun, and now it was time to watch some “Adult Swim” on Cartoon Network. I typed “My work here is done.”