Just. Wow.

Wow, how variance swings. The cash game on Thursday night was vicious. Poor Russ dropped $60, ten bucks at time. The main benificiaries were the Drawing Kings, Shawn and Miguel.

Probably what I enjoyed most was watching the cycle: they chase, they catch, then get a river bet called. The bigger their stacks, the less likely they are to throw away draws. Runner-runner flush draws, calling a flop and a turn bet to river a gutshot... we had all sorts of fishy play. Multiple times. Way more than the math tells you it should. Replaying all those hands in my head started to hurt. "They called that flop bet with WHAT?"

One of these days, I'd like to analyze those two while thinking about implied odds. They play lots of hands and bluff a lot, but get paid off plenty. Case in point was the hand that busted me. 7-2-2 flop, two spades. I held K7 offsuit, with the king of spades, in the unraised BB. I bet the flop, checked the turn when it came a third spade, then bet out with my king-high flush.

Miguel raised me all-in, and I figured him for a bluff, an ace, a two (but no full house), a queen or a jack. I was unable to fold, and he showed me his ace. He called my flop bet with A8offsuit, perhaps brilliantly assuming that he had two live overcards in addition to the nut runner-runner flush draw. Which I paid off.

I sulked for a hand, ("Collected my thoughts." or "Calmed down." works too) before rebuying. The very next big blind, it's again unraised and I'm looking at A4 offsuit. Flop is 4-4-3, rainbow. Small blind Albert bets $1 into me, I smoothcall, and Miguel raises all-in. And Albert calls $8 more. I call, having Albert covered by a buck or two, wondering if I'm drawing to a better full house... Nope, 52o for Albert and 74o for largestacked Miggy. The turn and river weren't any help to them, and I tripled up. It was nice to turn Albert's openended draw into a four-outer due to my ace.

Yeah, Albert is a lot looser than he was 3 months ago, and he plays his draws much stronger than before. The change in his game has been radical and dramatic, going from noticably tighter/more passive than me, to noticably looser/more aggressive, while I'm trying to make the same adjustments. He's mentioned reading 2+2 posts by Juanda and Negreanu, but using the 2+2 search for the keywords "suited connectors" brings waaaay too many hits.

All throughout the night, the cards were telling Shawn he could do no wrong. Russ also managed to overplay middle pair into Shawn's top pair twice. Russ with AJ, Shawn with KT on a flop of K-J-8? Shawn's not folding. Not that night, at least.

Shawn was the big winner that evening, turning his $20 into $90, and was pleased as punch. After his early exit from Sunday's tourney, he reminded us of his cashgame result, and proclaimed himself a "cash game specialist". I'm amused.

~~

Skipper foiled my plans during Round 3 of the Mixed Game Heads-Up Challenge. I picked PL holdem, and he beat me. His cards were excellent, and he seemed to pick up Big Slick when I was on the button with a hand worth a raise (A8, 77). The hand that pushed a lot of chips his way was a fun one. For him.. :)

He decided to raise blind from his button, with the blinds at 50/100. We had roughly 5K in chips each. I respect raising blind just as much as the next guy, but when I saw AQo, I knew I had to reraise to punish his insolence. He made it 300 - I made it 900, the max raise allowed, as this is pot-limit.

He looked, and called. Flop was 6-5-2, two clubs. I bet into him, 1200 into a 1800 pot, and he called. The turn was a red 5, and he arched an eyebrow and offered up "Hmm, do I have a five?" Figuring even a 6 was beating me, I flinched. And checked. He checked behind.

The river was an 8, and I check-called 2K to see that the free card I gave allowed Skipper to hit his gutshot. 97offsuit was good.

That hand left me with 1K or so, and I wasn't able to rally. Fittingly, I made my last stand with the Kournikova (KQo), and ran into another eff'ing Big Slick of his.

My take-home lesson in all of is that I need to play a little stronger on the turn. And that I seem to make more mistakes in unraised pots, when my opponents have a much wider range of possible hands.

MGHUC: $10 in, $0 out. Skipper leads 2-1. Razz up next.
Cashgame: $20 in, $46 out.