So, I hit up Atlantic City on Friday night. We left around 4:30pm and got to the Tropicana around 9pm...a little too late for the $100 + $20 Bally's no limit tournament. I was in a tournament mood this weekend too, so it kinda sucked that I didn't get a chance to play in one.

I did, however, play some $1/$2 NL, $2-$5 NL, and some $10/$20 limit. I ended up losing about $470 total playing poker. I played for maybe 4 hours total. I've got some great hands to talk about though.

1) In a $2/$5 NL game, I had 58 in the big blind. Four other players limp in. I get a free flop. The flop comes 456. I have middle pair, a flush draw and a gutshot. I bet out $20 into a $25 pot. One player calls. The turn brings a 8, giving me two pair. I bet out $60 and my opponent raises to $160 total. Now, here's what I'm looking at. I'm most likely beat...he either has a 7 for a straight or trips...most likely a 7 though. If he has a 7, then I have 8 s, 2 fives, 2 eights to win the hand. And I have an additional 3 sevens to tie the hand. There was $25+$40+220=$285 in the pot. He had roughly $58 bucks left. With 10 outs to in the hand, I had roughly a 20% chance (10 outs times 2) of winning with one card to come....or I needed 4 to 1 roughly on my money to win. However, since I was going to tie with any of the 3 sevens, I only needed slightly less odds than that to call.

With $285 in the pot, if I called his $100, I'd be getting 2.85 to 1 on my money. Not good enough odds to call. If I were to put him all-in for another $158, I'd be getting 1.46 to 1 on my call. Even worse odds. I was doing all of these calculations in my head and I don't know why, but I decided to put him all in. In hindsight, it was a stupid move, but at that time it seemed like it was the correct decision. He immediately called and turned over K7 for the straight. A K came on the river and I was done for.

After analyzing the hand over and over, my first mistake was betting on the turn. The correct move would've been to check the turn. Then, if he would've bet out anything less than $40 to $50, I would've had the odds to call him because he still had a total of about $210 left. The fact that I put in a $60 bet on the turn, made me ponder the river call because of the odds. The only reason I bet out on the turn was because I may have had the best hand already. If he came over the top, then I would've known that he had a made hand. If I would've checked and he bet, then I would've had no idea what he had.

My second mistake was putting him all-in after the turn. If anything, I should've called his $100 raise and folded on the river if I didn't hit my card. Anyways, I lost about $240 on that hand. Lesson learned.

2) In a $2/$5 NL game, I had 89 in the small blind. There were 5 limpers again, so I limped in as well. The flop came 894. I had top two pairs. I bet out $20 and got 3 callers behind me. Now, there was roughly $105 in the pot. The turn brought a 6. This time, I bet out $75. I get one caller. The river brings a T. I think for a second and looked at my opponent's stack. She had about $70-$80 left. I didn't think she was playing for a open ended straight draw because she called me too fast on the turn. My guess what was she had a flush draw. I decided to put her all-in. She said "you probably have me beat, but I'm going to call. You have two pair, right?". Phew...she had TJ for an open ended straight flush draw and I took down a very nice pot...roughly $415.

3) In a $10/$20 limit game, I had 66 in the cutoff (one off the button). Everyone folded to me and I raised to $20. Everyone folds to the big blind who reraises to $30. I call. The flop comes 33J. He bet out, like I expected, and I raised. He reraised. Uh oh...I was done for, but I decided to cap it. The turn brought a 7. Both of us checked. The river brings a K. He disgustingly throws in $20, as if he had a monster and missed a bet on the turn. Before he even turned over his cards, I knew he had Aces. I called his $20 and sure enough, he turned over Aces. I played that hand wrong. I should've folded to his reraise on flop.

So, those were the three hands that stuck out in my 4 hours of playing poker.

I actually spent most of my time playing Blackjack because I hate to say it, but playing poker was such a grind! I ended up winning about $1000 playing blackjack, so I left AC as a winner, which is always good.

I'm going to look to play in some NL tournaments in the upcoming months. Maybe up in AC. Perhaps the Borgata open...$500 buy-in.

Stock check: I got stopped out of NTO for a $.07 loss or 2.7%. Can't win them all. The chart actually still looks pretty good, so I'll probably get back in soon. In the meantime, I bought GSS at 3.01. My target is around 3.15 with a stop at 2.98.

Boogster

Source: Boogster's Poker Blog