Sort of a good news/bad news type thing. Good news: I got a NY Times interview (see last entry) that apparently got reprinted in a few places that friends of mine actually saw, and I started playing poker again. Bad news: none of the poker playing led anywhere, obv. After some initial rust wore off, I found myself making a couple of good reads for stacks at 5/10 FR NL (did I mention I'm a nit?), but I did dust off a little more than I got from the reads during the rusty phase. In addition, I seem to be on quite a decent streak of getting everything in the TPGK to set range cracked or coolered by stuff, both in FR and in tournaments. It hasn't really concerned me much, but I hope it works out better at LAPC (leaving tomorrow in the very early morning - if the flights hold up one time, getting there in time to play a cool televised SNG. More on that later.)

I'm doing quite well in a few things, though. I think my FR play is better now than it was when I was playing it full time; I'm more aggressive now and have a better grasp on what my image lets me do, which is to get away with some second barrels and to make some big (for FR) calls vs. LAG's. I'm also murdering sats, although my sample size is too small to matter these days - only a few good ones that I want to play go off every week. There are also some business ventures that I will be discussing in LA, including some with Tworags; you will likely see a lot of cool things coming up in the near future of this site.

Couple of fun hands because I haven't posted any in a while:

1)Close Sunday river decision: I raise AKo in EP and get called by MP early in the UB 200K (effective stacks 2500ish @ 15/30.) Flop A53; I lead 150 into 225 and the guy, whose stats are 13/4 over 30 hands, calls after a few seconds. Turn Q (worst card in the deck, IMO - I might not check/fold here but I think I usually should); check/check. River brick. Now what? I think all three choices (b/f, c/c, c/f) have merit, but you can't really c/f very often unless you *know* the guy can't have AJ or be floating, and 30 hands aren't enough. C/c has merit because AK is at the very top of your range here and he can mistakenly value bet (or just bluff) quite a few hands. But how much do you call? I didn't want to have to call a PSB of 525 - which happens a lot on UB because they just mash the button - so I bet 300, he shoved and I shrugfolded. Oh well.

2)Big 5/10 FR hand: There weren't enough tables running on Cake so I fired up a couple on FTP and ran into a fellow CR pro multitabling every single one of them with big stacks on each. After sitting for about an hour and getting coolered/bleeding down a bunch, I picked up red tens in the SB. With two limpers, including a weak/tight looking guy UTG, the CR pro - playing a very LAGTAG 26/20 - made it 55 in the CO, I coldcalled and UTG overcalled.

Flop 776. What now? Against a 26/20, tens in that spot, where he's isolating the limpers so wide, are probably the nuts. What I didn't want to do, though, is checkraise, because although I'd call a 3 bet it would probably make me hate life. Instead, I chose to lead out 2/3 pot - telegraphing my hand - and hope he bluff raised my nitty ass so I could shove. UTG folded, but instead of making it the 350 I kinda expected, CR guy just shoved for an effective 900 more. Umm...okay...well, you can't have AA-QQ here, so I have the second nuts/I call? He turned over T9 and I held.

This hand shows how much FR has changed from a year ago. It's still way nittier than 6 max, where I'd just 3 bet PF and feel happy about it; IMO, 3 betting here is definitely not good given that setup and sorta turns a good hand into a bluff. But postflop, the game is simply more aggro. Back during Cake's heyday, or even at the 3/6+ games on Stars/FT last year, a shove in that spot would be AA-JJ virtually every time; now, enough people have gotten the point of aggression that you actually have to think about ranges and get it in relatively thin against a lot of people. (Next time I run this play against this same guy, I'm obviously folding, though.)

Meh. I can still beat these games for a clip :)

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