Not a Bad Weekend In Golf & Poker

Well, the weekend is over. The prospect of going back to work is not attractive but what can I do?

Golf went relatively OK, was 78 and 77. Played fairly well off the tee, meh with the irons. Had a lot of 3-putts which was odd... I tend to start pulling the ball left when i'm putting badly so have to strengthen my left wrist firmness to keep it rolling straight sometimes. I think it's just a quirk that's popping up. Nothing special on the course and my index is still hovering at 1.9/2.

I've been putting my new poker setup to some use this week. Between all the other work I do, i've found time to eek out exactly 3500 hands of $25nl and $50nl as I progressed over the bankroll hurdle to move up. I sort of regret not leaving my original cash in the game when I first first cashed out of online poker in January 2006. Admittedly I had a mental hurdle jumping to 200NL and wanted to pay off my car loan, but still, I could be playing 5/10 or 10/20 on a 50k bankroll right now if I did push myself over that spot at the time.

Made a bit over $400 this week playing the super low limits, and I have a few things to note about the games. Yes, they're still good, but they're a sweet hell of a lot tougher than the old partypoker days. I played a hand at 50NL today with a guy which illustrates how much tougher the lower limits have gotten:

I have $58 on the button, opponent in MP has me covered.

He limps, I raise to $2.50 with AK, he calls.

Flop is K T 7 with two diamonds

He leads for $2.50, I think for a second and raise to $7, he calls

Turn is 3 offsuit.

He leads for $6, i raise to $15, he calls

River is an ugly 2 of diamonds, he takes 5 seconds and pushes.

I replay my past hands with this opponent in my head, see that i'm getting 2:1 and call with my top pair top kicker. He shows Jack Nine offsuit. Now that's aggressive folks. He put my to a tough position and made a nice bluff, but fortunately my raises along the way made the final pot too attractive to fold to his bluff.

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And for one more piece of poker content... here's me making a play.

I'm playing tight in big blind with $55. MP covers me, Button covers both and is tight and decent.

MP raises to $1.50, Button calls, I call with King Ten of Clubs

Flop is 7 5 2 - two clubs

MP bets $3.50 into the $4.75 pot, Button calls, I raise to $13. MP folds, Button calls.

Turn is a 4 of spades

I consider my options for 10 seconds and check, button bets $21 into a $30ish pot and I fold.

What's going through my head?

Raised the flop as there was a great chance MP had zero and Button was calling him with any two because of it. I had good folding equity against any non-monster hand they held due to my image, which was likely the case. I think I win this right here most of the time.

On the turn, button's call and call again when he's tight and decent makes me think he has a monster hand (QQ+, or a set). Against this range, and given the size of the pot, I doubt my $35 into a $30 pot makes him fold often enough that my push would be good. My King and Ten outs are probably not good leaving me with 9 outs for the flush plus there's always the chance he has AQ of my suit which makes my flush no good. In the past I might have fired this barrel as a semi-bluff, today I think there's too much against me here.

Open to opinions on both hands if we have any poker players reading this :P

T

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