One Step Forward

Wow. Four whole days over a weekend and ALMOST no poker.

I did do lots of sensible, useful stuff. The sort of things a responsible adult and pending parent should do. Like tidying the garden, clearing debris from various DIY escapades, and generally sorting out the house.

We even did some shopping for baby clothes. That's a pretty overwhelming experience. The little baby hats barely fit over my clenched fist, and I'm no Klitschko or Lewis!

I'm always petrified when I get the chance to hold a very young baby. I'm convinced they will squirm from my grasp and land on their head. It's not quite the same as spilling someone's beer. I don't think there's a spare in the fridge.

Watching the relaxed way my pals handle their kids is very impressive to me, but they assure me it all comes naturally. I do hope so!

I also made my final slightly frivolous purchase, from Ebuyer. A Belkin Pre-N MIMO wireless router and card for my laptop. What the fancy acronyms effectively mean is it's a wireless router with much better range than previous technologies.

So, my south-facing garden is now in internet range. Here's hoping for a nice summer, and maybe I can get a poker tan! Though bear in mind this IS Scotland we are talking about, so a 'nice summer' means >10 days without rain, and possibly a glimpse of the sun. Some guys get Aruba; I get the garden.

Ebuyer must have some ultra efficient dispatchers. I ordered on Thursday, using the super saver, el cheapo delivery option, and it arrived on Friday. I'd be pretty narked if I'd paid full whack for the express delivery - unless it arrived the same day!

On the poker front, the only play I've had so far was a short 2/4 session on Full Tilt on Sunday evening. I broke my diabolical losing streak with a very minor cash gain, despite making a monumental blunder with AA. In my defence, I've had a few bad experiences with good hands, but not the nuts, trying to check-call to a showdown against two other players when I'm not 100% sure I'm ahead, but the pot is too big to let go.

What happens is one player DOES have the nuts, and the other player is either stupid, or thinks the other guy is bluffing, so keeps throwing in raises, and getting re-raised, while I fume in the middle, with my set of queens on a possible straight board, or whatever.

So, on Sunday I get AsAh (I think - fix the damn hand history guys!) in the BB. It's folded around to LP, where it's brought in for a raise, and the button re-raises! Of course I cap, and both call.

The flop comes J high, but all clubs. Damn. Not great, but still worth a bet. LP calls and the button raises. Hmmm.

Normally this is a call, then check-call to showdown, for me. Unfortunately I begin to think too hard about the likely hands the two of them could have. It's not, in my mind at least, a calling board unless you have a really strong hand and want to keep the other players in the pot. Which makes me worry about the LP call.

Since the button re-raised pre-flop that probably means KK, QQ, or maybe a set of Js. I don't put him on AKs, since if I had AcKc I'd only call on the flop, and if I had AKs of anything else, I'd be folding this one. I don't put him on anything worse than JJ since who the heck would reraise pre-flop then raise this flop with anything less than JJ? (Spot the rhetorical question!)

Probably as a residual impact from the drubbing I took last month, I convince myself LP was probably raising with something like AcJc or better, and I'm likely drawing almost dead, and unlikely to see a cheap showdown due to the raising button. I might even be behind to both of them already, and I'm worried about getting sandwiched between the nuts and an optimistic raiser. So, I fold. Miller, Malmuth and Sklansky would beat me unconscious with their book for that one!

LP calls. I can't remember the rest of the action but it wasn't too aggressive. The turn was a blank, and the Ac came on the river, which would have given me a set but put four clubs on the board. LP checks the river and only calls a bet from the button - who flips over AJo, no clubs, for a winning two pair! Bollocks. Not a single club between them. I don't know what LP had. He didn't show.

So, the button reraised pre-flop with AJo and raised with TPTK on a possible flush board with two players already in the pot. That went on the player notes - though it worked for him this time! Another lesson learned.