Sympathy calls and the bonehead

All I can say is that last night's poker league was both rewarding and disappointing. For the first time in a long time, I felt I was really playing well. I felt comfortable with my reads and most importantly, I was remembering to slow down and think about what was going on.

That being said, there was the big blow up moment where I threw caution to the wind and threw my chips away violating rule #1. Never go broke with top pair. That's where all my chips went, and that was very disappointing.

One of the best moments of the night for me came against Connie. She's a decent league player, but not always the most sophisticated. She was in the CO position to my BB. She likes to enter pots from late position and doesn't need to be that strong, but when she's going to steal, she raises. In this occasion, she just called the BB. The dealer and the LB folded leaving me heads up with her. I didn't watch the flop, only her actions. She was looking at the TV when the flop came and had to be told to come back to the table. This appeared to be genuine disinterest. Since she limped pre flop, and was really interested in watching the Minnesota Twins, I put her on a small ace of some kind. The flop comes Q 8 3 rainbow. Now here comes the interesting part, I have 5 3 o and check to her. We need to drag her away from the TV to get back to the felt. She sorta glanced at the flop but was grabbing chips before her eyes could read the cards. I really felt at this moment that she had a small ace and was doing a continuation bet. The turn was a 5. Well, that helped! I checked, I was positive she would fire another shot at this one. I was correct. She just fired the minimum. I'm now convinced she's got absolutely nothing but ace high. I hope to slow play now. Hopefully, there is an ace on the river and I can make some money. The river missed her and I checked to her hoping she would bet. I figured a bet at this moment would only result in a fold. My only hope for more chips was to let her do it on her own + I want to see her cards!

I was right! She had a small ace! Not the biggest pot I've ever won, but heck, with 5 3 o in the BB, I can't complain.

I really stayed alive with a OK stack for most of the evening cleaning the dead money pots. I mostly just did semi-bluffs at bad texture flops. They looked good to me!

The bonehead move of the day came when I was in the BB and had one limper on my left (UTG). She joined are table late in the evening, so I had no history one her at all. I don't think I've ever seen her there before. I was dealt KcTs. The flop had a Tc and contained 3 clubs. I bet 2 BB into the pot and she didn't hesitate and moved all in. For some reason, I really thought she either had 2 pair (now that's stupid) or a small flush. Now calling left me almost broke. So I called. Ugh. That was dumb. I had enough chips left to make 1 all in and tripled up only to lose everything a few minutes later to a sympathy call. Handlebar mustache guy wanted to go home and called my KQ all in with Ad6d. I suppose I'll just have to play better next week!