Another NL Weekend

I was up at Lake Tahoe most of the weekend with some friends. He plays slots and BJ so I headed over to Harvey's.

Friday night I didn't play until after a great dinner at Harrahs Chinese restaurant. It is pricey but my friend gets it all comped. They do all the fancy presentations at the table and the decor is very nice. I'm not the best writer, so if you want a detailed review go to their web site.

I have been watching the coaching videos at stox poker to get a better foundation for my NL game. The videos by Ed Miller, Poker Made Simple, is giving me a great foundation. I have been applying the concepts he lays out and they work like a charm. They are by far the smartest thing I have done to improve my game. In fact, I am watching them over and over until I have all the concepts down.

After watching the videos once, I felt better prepared to play in Tahoe. Friday night I sat down and in 1 hour I was up 300. Then I ran into AA with my KK. The hand went down like this.

The previous hand the SB had AA and doubled up to 300. This left the UTG+1 player short stacked with say 125. Now, in the very next hand the UTG+1 player is now first to act and the SB is the button. So the UTG player opens for 20. In MP1 I raise to 40 with KK. The button cold calls the 40. UTG pushes for 105 more. I would rather have this heads up so I go all in for 500 to push out the button but he calls right away. We all show our cards (friendly game) and it is QQ, KK, and AA. The button guy got dealt AA twice in a row. This idea flashed in my head when he insta called but I couldn't believe he would have it twice in a row. So AA held up and I was back to my 200 starting stack.

This hand took the wind out of my sails and after missing a few flops I was short stacked and went all in with suited connectors and got called by JJ. Broke and tired I went to bed.

Sat morning I was catching cards and won back my 300 loss from the night before. Went to lunch and lost 100 back. This did take along time so it was just a case of being card dead. Sunday, I left my friends in Tahoe and headed to Reno and the Peppermill. I had 4 hours and it was home. I sat in a 1/2 NL game for 40mins and lost 100. Great start. Then the 10/20 limit game got going.

I was a little worried about switching between the games but my limit game didn't skip a beat. I was up and down when the players to my right started to straddle. They bugged me to do it and with a win from the previous hand I did. It was 3-bet with 6 callers by the time it came back to me and my KJo. I called to flop a gut shot. I get my gutshot on the turn and win a huge pot. I get lucky a few more times called with 23s and flopping K33. With hands like these I was up to 1300 from my 300 buy-in. I Tried to get lucky a few more time before I left and finally racked up 1k.

All said and done I was up 400 for the weekend. I am watching the videos again and playing NL online to good results at .25/.5. I was up 4 buyins before I made a bad push with AA to loose a buy-in and then switched tables to loose another. Still up, so I am happy. The videos made all the difference to my game.