So I played about 900 hands of $200 NL 6max and I ended up losing 2 buyins. Pretty crap-tacular but nothing out of the scope of normal variance (with some mistakes). Wow did I encounter some pretty crappy rivers tonight. I'll save you the details as I'm pretty sure this post might turn into a bitch session pretty quick but I had more than a few 4 outers ruin my hands tonight.

I'm running a bit cold during my first 5,000 hands of 6max NL200, but I'm sure I've got some leaks to plug. I made a 1 bad river bet tonight that was similar to the hand posted yesterday, as well as another river bet with TPTK that might have been a bit thin...when the calling station check/minraised me I obviously had to toss it knowing I was fully beat, but I did have the option for a free showdown.

I payed off a flush with aces against a maniac tonight. He was giving me a damn good price though. Here's the hand:

I'm in the SB with A A. Villain is on the button a 62/25 bad LAG. Effective stacks $192.

3 limps to me, I make it $15 to go, 2 limpers fold, Villain calls $13 more.

Flop ($34) 2 2 K

I lead for $22, standard continuation bet. Villain calls.

Turn ($78) T

I lead for $44, planning to fold to a raise. Villain smooth calls again. Here I'm pretty sure that Villain either has a 2 and slowplays way too much or he's got a flush and slowplays too much. Either way if he wants my stack he needs to raise here because a lot of people in this game might pay off with hands he beats here. The only thing he's really behind here is an unlikely A Q or KK or TT.

River ($166) J

I check, planning to fold to any reasonable bet (which is pretty much all in, as villain has $111 left in his stack). Instead, he gets cute and bets $40. I'm pretty sure I'm behind here, but the question isn't "Do I have the best hand?" but "How often do I have the best hand here?"

He's making me call $40 to win $206, so which is 5:1. So that means I need to win 1 of 6 showdowns, or about 16% of the time to make this call break even. Against most players I'd turbo muck this, but I felt he was donk-enough to pay off, even though it might be a very, very thin call. At the time, I thought it was curious that he bet $40 and left $70 in his stack... so he's either poorly bluffing or screaming please call. With this guy it could be either pretty easily.

I had another interesting hand that I won't spell out completely, but it involved another megadonk (they were out in full force) who managed to call me down with AK high, no pair, and it was good when I tried to put a move on him. The hand went down like this:

Villain is a 62/37 bad lag with calling station tendencies...unfortunately I didn't really realize these tendencies included no pair. He made a comment earlier at the table that I only played pairs so he was staying out of my way. I showed down two strong hands, and then started taking shots at him. The only dubious hand I showed was a preflop re-raise with K9s where I flopped 2pair and managed to get him to pay me on 3 streets with middle pair. From then on he pretty much thought I was Full of shit (FOS) but I didn't realize how badly.

I'm in the BB with A2s with $535 in my stack, and Villain covers. A couple limps, he raises to $9 on the button (this means any two cards) I call in the BB hoping to get multiway action. If not, I'm happy with investing about 1.5% of my stack with a suited ace against this guy to win a big pot. The limpers fold so it's heads up to the flop.

Flop comes J 9 4 rainbow. I check, mostly planning to give up. He checks behind. I've seen him do this before usually when he has no hand. if he gets any piece or a draw, he'll usually fire.

Turn ($21) comes 6 completing the rainbow. I check, he bets $10 into $21, which I read as real weak, so I checkraise to $35 on a steal (and possibly the best hand). He calls. I put him now on some sort of middle pair like 77 or 88 that didn't want to bet the flop with 2 overs or a hand like 78. It took him a long time to call, with this guy usually means he thinks people are making a move, but he's gotta call anyway. I felt that was my cue to nudge him a bit harder.

River $91 blanks with a 3. I lead for 2/3 the pot, $66. He CALLS with AK high, no pair no draw. So essentially he called the turn and had to hope I had no pair and then called a river bet. Truly amazing.

I guess I'm the real donk thinking Villain is capable of folding 3rd or 4th pair or no pair at all. I should have just been value betting the shit out of this guy, and I did after this hand. I guess it was a wake up call but perhaps good players won't need to have the donk call him with AK high in order for them to wake up.