Long Sunday

Well, I played for about 15 hours on Sunday. Not quite how I envisioned having a long day of poker but in the end it worked out a lot better than it could have.

I went and played the $540 NL hold'em at Caesar's. 15,000 starting chips and I couldn't even make it past the 2nd level. I have this hand to take me out of the tournament. The blinds right now are only 50/100 and under the gun makes it 300 to go. I look down and find 10-10, and decide to call the 300. The button calls as well, and so does the small blind so we take the flop 4 ways. The flop comes 874 rainbow. The small blind checks, original raiser leads out 900. I am not sure if he has a big pair or is continuation betting a hand like AK or AQ and I decide to call with two more players to act behind me. The button folds and small blind calls as well. The turn is an Ace and we all check around. The river is a 10 and the small blind leads out for 1,600, original raiser folds and action is to me. At this point I think I have hit my money card and raise to to 5k. The lady who led out 1,600 now pushes all-in. I try to replay the hand in my head and decide that either she flopped the nuts with 65 and played the hand to perfection or she I have her oversetted. Now, I don't have a ton of information on this player as we haven't played all that long yet but I did just see her call down a river bet of 1,600 with Ace high so I don't have a ton of respect for her play. Anyways, after some deliberation I decide to call and she rolls over J9o for the stone cold nut straight. She nail's her two out gutter to make my set of 10's. The only cards in the deck that ever get her paid on the hand. I leave pretty steamed.

I could have played the hand quite differently and probably made out fine. 1) I could have raised the flop on an 8 high board to find out where I was at against he original raiser. If he pops me back I have a pretty easy laydown, if not I likely just take down a nice tidy little pot right there. 2) I could have bet the turn in position once the Ace drops as I really think they preflop raiser absolutely hated the card so now I am confident he had some sort of pair. 3) I could make a laydown when she rereraises me all-in on the river as I would still have close to 10k chips but I trusted my read of having her oversetted and went with that decision. So, played the hand pretty passive and weak and got punished when I nail my card.

I came back to the room and fired up some Sunday tournaments. I had zero success in any tournaments. I was deep in a $50 PLO rebuy and lost a hand that would have put me top 5 with 50 left and 27 cashing to an absolute moron so that hurt. But, the real hurt came playing cash. I was getting run down non stop for about 3 hours. I was probably rivered 15 times in that span for big all-in pots. I was stuck between 5-6 buyins on 2/4 PLO8 tables and absolutely losing my mind. About 5 hours into my session it was probably the worst on-line day I have had in years. However, I continued to play and eventually started nailing some hands and getting paid. I finally got myself unstuck which I never thought possible at the low point of the day and actually turned a profit of a couple $100 on-line for the day.

Heading out to play the Caesars tournament again today. It is a $200 hold'em event today so it should be a large field with some real bonehead plays. I better play a much stronger game than I did yesterday and actually punish the poor players instead of reward them.