Supdate

Not much poker doings lately....played about 1k hands over Friday and the weekend in between holiday parties and golf. Played all at Stars for a change of pace (feel of the game, plus software), and because I can now be superstitious again with sites :P. I'm playing NL50 while my Stars roll catches up to my FT roll, and I don't know if it's the site or the level, but there are a lot more loose players. One strange thing I've noticed though is that I've come across a number of really loose, pretty passive players (like 40/10/1.5) that are winning over >1k hands. Just variance, but at FT I hardly ever see someone with those stats over a decent sample who has a positive win rate. Rigged, obviously.

The single biggest thing I hate at Stars, or like at FT I guess, is the way the check button and the fold buttons work. FT does it so much easier....if there has been no bet yet, you have no fold button...the first button becomes check. If there has been action, then there is no check button...the first button becomes fold. At Stars, the first button is always fold and the second button is either check or call, depending on the action. Since I use a script that maps the buttons to keys -- so I don't have to use a mouse -- FT works much better for me. I guess it doesn't matter much if you use a mouse for everything. So, I keep getting a message from Stars that checking is free, am I sure that I want to fold. I suppose that the play you can make at Stars not available at FT is to open-fold. But that's only good for metagame, which everyone says doesn't matter at the low stakes.

I'm up about half a buy-in over those thousand hands, but within that there have been lots of big pots. I suck at flips, or I would be doing really well. One time, I lost 2.5 buy-ins in two orbits, on three different hands on a pretty wild table. All of them were 3-bet pots. The first one I stole from CO with 99, and a very aggressive solid TAG who looks like he may over-defend 3-bet me from SB. We ended up getting it in on the flop, which was low but had two diamonds. He had the NFD, and it came in. The very next hand, CO opens and I 3-bet on the button with a high suited connector (read on CO, or I might have just called). I pick up an OESFD, he checkraises me all in, and his KK holds up. Next orbit, I pick up QQ and get it in preflop for 60BB, and his AK hits.

In general, I'm playing about the same VPIP as before (19+), but not opening as much. I am instead 3-betting more light and playing pretty aggressively on the flop, just to see what comes out. That's one of the nice things about dropping a level, I don't feel nearly as apprehensive about some experimentation. And for the most part, that part is going well, as I'm finding myself in spots where I'm getting the money in really good...at worst I've been getting it in as a slight underdog but with a big pot overlay. The final results haven't been there, but the sample size is small. There was a stretch when it seemed like I kept losing to 5 outs or less, and that was pretty tough. Losing flips is no fun, but it's not as infuriating as the longshot draws that come in.

Unfortunately, I couldn't connect with Pawel for a sweat session, and he's out of commission (coaching wise) until after Christmas, so it will be some time next week, I guess. In the meantime, I've been chatting with Noel here and there, and he's offered to sweat me for a bit if I can actually find an evening to play. Plus I'd like to rail someone myself during the day, if it works out.