A rocky start to September on the football bets, but playing decent Poker

It was a bit of a rocky start yesterday. I cashed out too early with a 7 match accumulator football bet, for £8, giving me only a £3 profit.  I thought it would lose considering FSV Duisburg went down to 10 men and were drawing 1-1 at home in a friendly and thought nothing of cashing out the money in the 85th minute when I had them to win.  Should have taken the risk when all the other results had come through!  Turned out 10 man Duisberg won their friendly 2-1 which would have landed me a tidy £80 win.  Sigh. Still, following the guidelines from Zen and the Art of Poker I decided to control my emotions and not to steam or tilt!  Deep breath.

CASHED OUT TOO SOON

PUTTING MY WORDS INTO PRACTISE

Accepting the loss in reasonably good faith, I'm happy to inform the reader that generally I proceeded to play a solid game on the Poker tables, playing a 6 max Texas No Limit Hold'em micro stakes with a $5 dollar maximum buy in.  Although the first game I played earlier in the day wasn't hugely successful profit wise (broke even), I practised patience and 'watched' what the other players were doing at the table, attempting to read their hands at different points in other plays.  I generally stuck to the fundamentals learnt from my readings so far, with an air of calm.

THE FIRST TEXAS HOLD'EM GAME

I managed to pick up a nice small win with A5 unsuited from the small blind, with two other players in (including a big stack) after it was raised 3 times the blind from LP. The flop came J ♠️  A ♠️  A ♣️  I checked, check, check. The turn was a 4 ♠️  putting a flush out there, but the pot was so small I decided to bet out around 19cents - so about a two thirds of the pot. The big stack player to my left called and the initial pre flop raiser folded. The river was another A giving me four of a kind! I bet into the remaining player for around 60 cents and he called with a J full house. Quads!! I think this must have been just my second hand in the game.

I continued to play fairly solidly, to feel my way back into playing after 2/3 weeks off, and picked up some top two pairs with hands like A9 and Ax to build my stack to about $7.50.  However, my profit was lost due to the following hand and scenario.

MAKING MY FIRST MISTAKE

For the second time in the game I held 9 ♥️ 9 ♣️ and this time on the button. I made a standard raise of three times the BB to 15c, the player with bigger, but now slightly diminished stack, called again from small blind and then the BB raised to 82cents! I had watched him playing slightly irrationally before so I figured after thinking for a while to try to call him and catch a 9 on the flop perhaps as I felt he was merely protecting his BB from a possible steal. The flop came J 💎 2 ♣️ 4 ♥️ which I regarded as a fairly good flop for me. Both players checked, including the guy who made the huge pre flop raise (he actually checked as fast as lightning), and I decided to check as well. The turn came a 8 of 💎 , which I still figured as an ok card, but to my surprise the small blind player bet about half the pot, which is what I was planning to do, (maybe three quarters). The initial pre flop raiser folded and I called. We both checked on the river card, some sort of blank came like a 5 ♥️ and I was disappointed to see he held 10-10. $2.50 profit gone. Although I was overly happy with my style of play after 2/3 weeks off, perhaps I could have played this 9-9 better.

My next game, many hours later, played when I woke up this morning, was much more successful in terms of profit, even though I still played very similarly to before.  Perhaps feeling more confident now I had had a bit of initial practise in the game before. My first small win came from 5 💎 5 ♣️ from calling a 3 bet pre flop raise when the flop came A ♥️  Q 💎  5 💎 against just one other opponent. He raised fairly small and I decided just to call. The turn was a K ♣️ , but as I figured he wasn't on J10 I raised three quarters of the pot after he checked. He called. I bet the river smallish for value, it was something like an 8 or 9, and he called showing A ♠️  6 ♠️ giving me a nice win of $2.22. I love hitting those sets with small pairs!

MY DOUBLE UP HAND OF THE DAY

The hand that really doubled me up though (to $12ish) was against the same player who was involved in this previous 5-5 hand.  

We were in the exact same positions, him EP, me MP- LP, with one other player in between. I called from late position with 6 ♠️ 7 ♠️  and hit a dream flop of 8 ♠️ Q ♠️ 9 ♠️ with two players before me, giving me a flush and straight flush draw.  As both players checked, I decided to raise very small and to my surprise both players called ... someone on an A ♠️ or K ♠️ perhaps?

The turn was a 7 ♣️ and after both players checked again I bet out a protective $1.20, so about three quarters of the pot.  The first player went all in and the other (fortunately) folded.  The player all-in held top set with QQ!  Fortunately, the river was a 4 ♠️ and I doubled up nicely.

The final conclusion is, once again, no more football bets, (haha) keep playing poker in this new style I have adopted and sticking to the system! That 6 ♠️ 7 ♠️  call came from the Sklansky and Miller system who suggest for you to call with that kind of hand from MP/LP about 70-80% of the time as I highlighted in the previous article.  I played aggressively with the best hand.  I will keep having faith in the new system and I really think over time I will see a good profit. Plus I enjoyed playing in this new way.

Good luck in your games folks! Thanks for reading.