fossilman challenge and onward

Well, my friends and I got to play a little with Greg Raymer. I think I got the year he won it wrong. I believe it was 2004, not 2005, that Greg won the main event.

There wasn't too much I learned. I understood a lot already from what he said. The one thing I learned more about was "Reverse Implied Odds." I read about this in some poker magazine articles and never really knew what they were talking about. It cleared things up a bit for me. It sort of revealed another hole in my game. So that in itself could pay for the $199 challenge course.

I played with Raymer in the last tournament event on Sunday. I was doing well early but ran into a cold deck and was just hanging on. I got busted in the middle with Ac7c vs. 55. I eventually hit two pair but my opponent hit trips on the flop. So that was that. No money involved so nothing really lost.

What was interesting was we did some simulation play and Greg would commentate on our play. He called up my table and he proceeded to deal out a hand and we would play it out like we normally would. After the hand was over, he'd comment on the play. I was actually in a very good situation to get feedback on my play from the man himself. Here's what happened:

I got dealt 77 in early position and I raise the 100/200 blinds to 600. The guy to me calls, the BB raises to 2200. I call.

The flop comes out AQ8. The big blind checks, I check.
The turn reveals a K. The pot is like 5000. The BB bets 1000. I pause and raise to 3000. The BB thinks several seconds before going all in. I immediately fold.

Greg then proceeded to perform analysis on the hand. He didn't like the guy after me calling my raise and then folding. Then he went on to my play. He said he really liked how I played the hand - calling the re-raise preflop. He said I played the flop well by just checking. He especially liked me raising to a weak bet on the turn. He said that on TV, I could look like an idiot or a genius depending on what my opponent had. It turned out my opponent had pocket Aces. So on tv, I would have looked like an idiot but if my opponent had JJ and folded to my raise, I would have looked like a genius.

In my mind, I gave my opponent credit for at least JJ or higher. The check on the flop could mean a couple of things - he missed with JJ, TT or KK and checked to see if he was behind with me flopping the A. Or...it could mean he was trapping with AA or QQ. But I checked. Checking gives me two advantages. It prevents me from being trapped and it might make my opponent suspicious of being trapped themselves, if they're behind.

The 1000 bet on the turn indicated weakness. JJ or TT is what I put him on now. So I pause slightly and raised to 3000. The all-in was the right play on his part, as Greg pointed out. Greg didn't really have much to say about my opponent because he had pocket aces. Pretty hard to play those wrong for most players.

So that was basically the highlight of our 'Fossilman Challenge' weekend.

So today, I began my cash game experience at PokerStars.

I figured with my bankroll, the 0.10/0.25 games were about the right speed for me.

I took a couple of bad beats early but it didn't cripple me or anything. I started to get bored just playing one table so I played two tables. Now this second table I was making some good money. I doubled up early with pocket jacks. I tripped up on the flop with a flush draw and the AdKd went all in to hit his flush but lost. My trip J held and I doubled up to almost $50. Meanwhile in my other window, I was just hovering around the $25 mark. All in all, that first session, my profit was $5. About 10% return.

Second session. I had to refill early on my $25 because I made a straight on the turn and gave my opponent trips. But the river quadded him up. I didn't lose a whole lot but the hand that sent me to refill was the following:

Me: K3
Opponent: KT

Flop: 6T6
Turn: K
River: K

However, I fired up a second window to play and again, I doubled up. I was on a sick 3 hand tear - AA, QQ then KK. I shown down the QQ and then doubled up showing down the KK. Not very encouraging to see if I were my opponents. So was about even since I had to refill on one table but doubled up on the other table.

That changed when my pocket 3s tripped up and stacked another player. My profit was climbing now. So far, my worst has been AQ. I've rarely won with this hand. And the last two KK got called. Both times an A flopped and I had to throw away my hand even though I didn't want to.

Total cash profit: $16 from both sessions.