slowlane123's poker blog

Well it's been a crazy week since my last update. Americans can no longer play online poker and I've turned to live poker (for 1 session).

Surprisingly the games aren't as dead as I thought they'd be. The games seem OK from ~10am-1pm or so (probably quite good earlier than that but I'm never up at that time). My first day without the US players I 4 tabled rush, 3 tabled 400nl and 3 tabled 200nl. The next day the games were good and I got around 900 hands/hr just 4 tabling rush with 2 400nl tables. They're all fairly soft at the moment which is nice. A lot of the solid regs that gave me trouble were from the US and all of the horrible regs which I feel very comfortable with at my tables are either euro, brazilian (these guys are crazy) or South Korean (nits!). So all is well in the online poker world of slowlane123. I'm still running fairly hot and playing incredibly well. My redline has flattened right out and I'm still thinking at a higher level each day.

Just for fun and to meet a student of mine I decided I would play some live poker last night. I stayed for just over 4 hours and made $2.3k playing 500nl with 5/5 blinds.

I signed up to play the 200nl tables as I only had $700 cash on me and I like to keep 2.5 buyins incase I lose one or need to top up. But the wait list was kinda long and the 500nl tables had seats open. So I joined the500nl table at UTG+1 and sat out the 2 hands waiting for my BB to arrive. In those two hands I saw this crazy asian guy raise to $20 and call a 3bet of $105. Flop came KQ2 the asian guy checked, this other reg looking guy who had an FTP jumper on (what a twat, I mean, not only do you look like an idiot with it on, but it can only be -EV to be wearing poker sites gear to let fish know you play probably a lot online) bet $140 into $225, asian guy jams to a snap call and T/R brick off. Asian guy flips QT (lol) and FTP dude shows AA. Asian mumbles about how he hasn't seen two aces in a long time and I lick my lips with excitement.

Next hand its limped to asian guy in MP2 and he opens to $30. 4 runners, flop is Q89. Asian guy bets (2nd to act) $100 into $135 everyone folds and he shows JJ.

So already I've got an idea of how this crazy asian guys play. I'm dealt into the BB and fold some random junk. 2nd hand I get dealt 88 in the SB as my student comes over to say hi for the first time. I check it through and we see a flop 4 ways.

Flop comes A85. I lead for $15 into $20 and crazy asian guy raises to $45. At this point I have the deck so crushed I decide to flat to keep all his bluffs in. Turn is a Q I check he checks. River is A. I check hoping he'll bet all pairs/all bluffs and he bets $65 into $110, I raise to $165 hoping to get a call from a 5 (lol), 8 or Q (I figured he'd bet any ace on the turn). He snap raises me to $275. I tank for a while and am kind of lost in the hand. I'm so used to rush where you only have 20 seconds to figure everything out whereas live you have almost unlimited time. In retrospect this is a super easy shove. He'd never check 2p on the turn and probably has some raggy Ax hand given the river action. I did end up shoving and getting super snap called by A3. Doubled up second hand, delicious.

About ten hands later there are a few limpers in EP/MP then the hijack opens to $30, gets a cold-call from the CO who only has 25bb and I look down at KK in the SB. I hadn't raised a hand yet so I didn't want to go too big. My standard squeeze here online would be ~$140. I decided on $105 and in retrospect this was a mistake. I should have made it an amount that allowed me to re-raise if the short stack shoved (which he obv would, being that he is here to gamble for 30 mins in a suit asian guy), so $80 would have been ideal. Anyway, the reg who opened (he'd been talking about the US poker thing and also shaking a lot of hands of players walking by) calls (he is about 180bb deep, I have covered) and the shorty does shove for $135. I wait until the dealer has told me the amount to call before calling because I wanted to know if I could re-raise or not. The guy being a dumb shorty goes, 'You really thinking about folding?'. I didn't answer.

I call and reg calls. Flop is 965. I lead $80 into $420. I wanted to underbet but didn't realise how big the pot was. I'm not used to having nearly a buyin in the middle in a 3way pot before the flop. Reg raises me to $260 and I shove. He snap calls, we're all-in for around $860 and he asks, 'You got the flush?' I give a 'Nope' and he doesn't give much of a reaction.

The board runs out 2 then 3. And he says, 'Now you got the flush.' Not as a question but as a statement. He begrudgingly lifts his cards as if he knows what my reply will be. 'Yep, but I might have had you beat without it.' He shakes his head and mucks his hand. I flip my cards and he assures me I didn't have him beat but never states what he had. I don't ask.

The only other hand worth mentioning was a big one also. I limped UTG with A9 (not sure if this or isn't +EV, may well be good on this crazy table). 5 people see a flop (lol). Flop is A94. I lead for $15 into $25 and crazy asian guy from hand 1 min raises to $30. I'm about to call to keep his bluff in and as I reach for three red chips to do so he says, 'Don forge you up against clazy bruffer guy.' Everytime he has said that he has been bluffing with a hand that has marginal showdown value, like bottom pair top kicker or mid pair weak mid kicker. 'Good point' I reply and reach for more chips. I raise to $110 and he snap calls. I really have no idea how deep we were but it was somewhere between 180-200bb (I had him covered). Turn is the T. I didn't even notice one bit that I had turned the nut flush draw. I bet $140 into $245 and he snap raises to $380. I tank for a bit. There's some online nit inside of me thinking 'Man, how on earth can I get called by worse if I shove here?'

I shrug off these thoughts and eventually shove for I don't know how much more but I think it was around $360 for him to call. He snaps calls and can't get his chips in fast enough. The river bricks off 2 and he flips his hand. I remember the look in his eyes. He knew he had legitimate holdings and when he flipped he looked to me to see my reaction. I gave nothing. His face was so optimistic but he didn't seem very confident he was ahead.

'So sick' he announced as he threw his 9T into the muck and I scraped a nearly $2k pot. I told the regs I was thinking of folding, then they pointed out I had the flush draw and thought I was crazy. I told them I didn't even notice it.

Later into the night some american dude sits in on the table and buys in for $300. The talkative nerdy guy next to him says 'I know you from somewhere.' Eventually someone figures out that he is infact the lead singer of Good Charlotte who were in town playing a gig. We get to talking and he's actually a really nice guy, despite being all tatted up. He gave me some tips on starting bands and dealing with nerves. It was genuinely helpful.

I ended my session at midnight and headed home to roll around in all the cash :-)

Reds are $5s and the stack of blacks on top are $100s. Made a bit more than this after the photo:

Lead singer of Good Charlotte: