Holy Post Happy Batman!

I finished day two of new employee orientation at my new employer today. My new manager asks me when he met me today, "Your brain a little mushy right now?" Mushy is the perfect word. I got home from work, opened up Google Reader to find 97 new posts from all of my poker feeds. Good gracious! Everyone post today?

RaisingCayne asked a question in the comments of my last post.

Cappy,
Let me know if you have any epiphanies! I've been consistently dead money at the low stakes cash tables, so do feel free to share any specific revelations when/if experienced!

You know, that's a great idea! I should start sharing more about what I'm learning trying to figure out this cash game stuff.

RecessRampage posted some fantastic advice last Friday. He discusses something he learned from Fuel55. It was all about controlling pot size. This idea was not that you want to keep the pot small, but keeping the pot the right size for what you have. You have a little hand, keep it small. You have a big hand, get it big. This to me was an epiphany.

I normal play SNGs. Since I'm a low limit player, I've been successful by playing the math and staying uber tight early and then playing big hands to pad the stack. I tried this playing the cash games. This doesn't work at all. A raise isn't likely to thin the herd much. Two suited cards or some paint is all you need to justify playing a hand at a low stakes ring game.

So where am I going with this? I think what I learned was to be patient and play the pots but keep it small until you have something and then bet the pee out of it. This is just my first run at an explaination. I'm gonna try and play some more when I'm not so close to utter exhaustion. Read the liked stuff and tell me what you think. I found it really useful!

Since its Tuesday, I figured I would take my mushy brain down to poker league. Poker for points. I need to find a different live poker venue. Tonight just sucked. My reads were fantastic. I got my money in ahead and ahead big, only to find that Doom Switch exists in free bar poker.

It took me just over 30 minutes to hand over all my chips to river card improvers.

First hand. I flopped a set of 5s. Yep, pocket 5s in the whole. I over bet the pot, got called. I over bet because there were two clubs. Sure as shiat, another club on the turn. I bet at it again to see how strong his flush was. he was pretty happy with his hand. The board didn't pair the river and he was tickled to win with his 10 high flush.

Second Hand. I've got J9h. The flop comes AJ6. I'm LB and check. BB checks. Turn is a Q. I get no information that this helped the BB either. I raise a pot size bet. He just calls. The river is an 8. I only have 2nd pair, so I check now. I can't image the 8 would help. There are no flushes or straights...but heck...now he raises, I call...hey! what do you know. A set of 8s. Son of BIATCH!

I turn up the aggression to steal a bunch of blinds. Get myself back up to 900 chips. I look down in middle position to find AK. One limper ahead of me. The blinds are 25/50. I make 250 to go. Dealer calls. The flop comes K high. I move my last 650 chips out, he calls. He's got KTo...anyone want to guess what the river is?