Tues update

The S-man was over last night for more pokery fun.Started out by going out of a $5 sng when my J9 in the bb was out kickered by a Queen on a 99 rag flop.Played another and made a loose call for my stack with the nut flush draw after the flop.It was a turbo and I had a 35% chance of taking a big chip stack but if I’m going to play a draw like that I want my money in first.The flop was nine high and it was obvious the other player had an overpair.

From there the S-man logged in under his name at Pokerroom ( balance $10.21) and we played and lost another $5 turbo.Without enough for another sng we sat down with $4.45 at a loose $25nl full ring table.Raises of $1.25 were being called by 3 or 4 callers and a couple of players were abusing each other in the chat so it was turning into a real pissing contest.I mentioned to the s-man that anyone playing textbook 4* bb raises etc preflop would get killed at this table and made sure when we did get involved there was no messing around.

A mouthy fish raised $1.25 UTG, and as 3 others called so did we and managed to bust bullets with 67 on a 4 6 7 flop.We won a couple of smaller pots and were looking good on $16 when we ran JJ into 99.It was an interesting hand though as the 99 player was one of the mouthy ones and had made several $1.25 preflop raises over the last few hands.Again his raise was from early position.Two or three called behind and the S-man and I decided our JJ was definitely the best hand and reraised it to $4.Of course Mr 99 hit his set and cleaned us out but I wasn’t upset with the way we’d played it.A good hand to help demonstrate just how player dependent some decisions are as I don’t remember the last time I reraised preflop with JJ.

There really are a different set of rules at the micro limits when it comes to bet sizes.At $25nl I would tend to lead out with a $1.20 preflop raise but that’s not set in stone and depends what the tables breaking point is ,if I only want one or two callers.With a hand like JJ I want to be heads-up after a preflop raise and not dealing with 4 or 5 callers.If the preflop raise has to be $1.50 or $2 each time to reduce the number of callers then so be it.

Postflop too I want to tell the right story and the majority of the time I will bet out at least ¾ of the pot or more as a continuation bet.If called and I haven’t many outs ,then I won’t throw any more at it, but at least I know my opponent had a hand worth calling a solid preflop raise with, and he/she then thinks it’s still good enough postflop to call another solid bet.This doesn’t mean against some players I wont fire out again on the turn sometimes but unless it’s a decent bet ( to try and force a fold) it’s just not worth doing as it will be called and I’l have no idea where I am by the river.

After busting out the s-mans small roll it was back to Turbo land and this time I won the 5 seat shorthanded sng to leave my Pokerroom account $1 up for the night!

S-man went on his way and I hit up Inters 6 max £50 nl and promptly lost £22 when my boat was beaten by a better boat.Still up a few bucks at Inter ( $4 to be precise!) for the week and looking forward to more later tonight.

Mrs A arrived back today.Apparently she was leaving England at tea-time last night not arriving home here at that time like I expected.Her dad drove them up the road and had to call the AA as his back lights failed.Why anyone would want to drive that far when it can be done by plane in an hour I'll never know!

Ok here's a wee one from the paper.Back later in the week..

Paisley meat-market worker John Sword recalls a colleague who came in one morning to tell everyone of the drama of the chip pan going on fire the previous night and the fire brigade being called out to save their house from going up in flames.He had reached the point in his tale where he said that the family dog had gone for the fireman when an astonished listener, presumably brought up on too many Lassie films, asked: "Your dog ran all the way to the fire station?""Naw," explained the chap. "He went for the first fireman through the door and sank his teeth into him."

Speaking of dogs, yet another reason why police officers should not be routinely armed in this country. New York news channel NY1 reports that police officers were called to break up an argument in the Bronx, and at least one officer drew his gun when the pit bulldog of one of those involved turned aggressive.The outcome? Three of the officers were taken to hospital with gunshot wounds and a fourth with a dogbite.