No play over the weekend, local pub Friday night and very lazy weekend mostly spent watching Terminator 1 and 2. This was because Hannah had never seen them, and still didn't want to. So first I had to watch her choice "She's The One" (less painful than others she subjected me too but not a recommendation), then we grudingly got T1 into the DVD player.

After about 20 mins was the revalation:

"this IS great, isn't it- why haven't more people seen it??"

"EVERYONE else has seen it - probably a few times"

So then watched T2 straight after, then T1 again the next day. Hopefully this will ease-up our Lovefilm.com choices, which were previously either from the "Undisputed greats list", or "Hannah's list".

A good day of poker today, only 4 hours and 1300 hands though. +$3,900, around $1300 above expectation.

Had a few interesting hands, including starting off the first hand of my evening session with probably the easiest decision in Hold'em:

***** Hand History for Game 1063602265 *****
$800.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Monday, October 13, 09:40:06 ET 2008
Table H1JOHN (Real Money)
Seat 5 is the button
Seat 1: Alexdb ( $800.00 USD )
Seat 3: deuce2 ( $800.00 USD )
Seat 4: mybrother ( $500.30 USD )
Seat 5: itsnotme ( $800.00 USD )
Seat 6: Tuff1Fish ( $792.00 USD )
Tuff1Fish posts small blind [ $4.00 USD ].
Alexdb posts big blind [ $8.00 USD ].
Dealt to Alexdb [ ]
RAISE deuce2, $32.00 USD
RAISE mybrother, $112.00 USD
RAISE itsnotme, $800.00 USD
Tuff1Fish folds
CALL Alexdb , $792.00 USD
deuce2 folds
mybrother folds

Flop:
[ ]

Turn:
[ ]

River:
[ ]
itsnotme shows [ ]
Alexdb shows [ ]
Alexdb wins $1746 .00 USD from main pot

I think the next hand was interesting because it shows a big adjustment from the standard line (bet/raise/bet/etc) to account for the other 2 players' different styles.

***** Hand History for Game 1063288305 *****
$800.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Monday, October 13, 11:41:15 ET 2008
Table Kobe (Real Money)
Seat 3 is the button
Seat 2: Alexdb ( $822.00 USD )
Seat 3: SykoAce ( $586.52 USD )
Seat 4: onemagicru ( $1165.84 USD )
Seat 5: tinkeri ( $1184.04 USD )
onemagicru posts small blind [ $4.00 USD ].
tinkeri posts big blind [ $8.00 USD ].
Dealt to Alexdb [ ]
RAISE Alexdb , $28.00 USD
CALL SykoAce, $28.00 USD
RAISE onemagicru, $44.00 USD
tinkeri folds
CALL Alexdb , $20.00 USD
CALL SykoAce, $20.00 USD

Both players are bad-erratic, so the min-raise could be anything.

Flop:
[ ]
BET onemagicru, $40.00 USD
CALL Alexdb , $40.00 USD
CALL SykoAce, $40.00 USD

I don't like raising here because onemagicru c-bets the turn 75% of the time, and both opponents are bad, with wide ranges, and I don't want to raise when it might convince them to pass their one pair hands and dead straight draws. If a flush hits and they have it I guess I'll often get the chips in anyway (esp with the Qc backup), so I may as well optimise the ways they can get chips in badly.

Turn:
[ ]
BET onemagicru, $136.00 USD
CALL Alexdb , $136.00 USD
CALL SykoAce, $136.00 USD

Now I like raising even less, because this is a scare card for all their 1 pair hands and straight draws - so it would be a good card to bluff. Calling makes sure SykoAce sees 'good' pot odds, and I think I will have better equity in a 3 way pot than a 2 way pot since they will call so lightly and won't have as many outs as they may think.

River:
[ ]
BET onemagicru, $208.00 USD
CALL Alexdb , $208.00 USD
CALL SykoAce, $208.00 USD

I was surprised he fired the third barrel and started to think he may have had the flush, or at least that raising would only get called by flushes, so again I just called to encourage the overcall.

onemagicru shows [ ]
Alexdb shows [ ]
SykoAce doesn't show [ ]
Alexdb wins $1302 .00 USD from main pot

If I could see their cards I'd obviously have raised the turn, but I think that minimising my agression would keep the majority of the wide ranges in the pot to the river, and winning 1/2 a stack off each most of the time is better than getting the pot heads up to win 1 stack some of the time.

I finally got hold of a copy of this month's "Inside Poker" magazine today, which is significant because it marks my debut as a journalist! Page 64 "Paths to Profit" is my piece.