Bluffing sod

I had a lovely little session last night, made all the more so because my brother is away so I am staying in his place – blessed peace and quiet!

I played two tables of 6-max PLO for two and a half hours and won $143. I can’t lay claim to any great play; it was one of those nice sessions where I held a lot of cards, hit a lot of flops, and was up against mostly rather weak players.

An interesting thing was that one player called me (in a good-natured way) a ‘bluffing sod’, after he had failed to believe I had trips on a paired board and managed to hit his two-outer full house. When I mentioned that I was holding good cards (and in fact had yet to show down a losing hand at this point) he said his notes went back many months. It just goes to show how people’s perceptions of you can differ from reality. I am far from being a big bluffer in these games, nor am I even loose compared to most players; but I do raise many of my hands and follow up with a flop bet frequently, and this obviously creates a certain impression. However, my outright stone-cold big-bet bluffs are infrequent.

Anyways, I got a chance to exploit this comment only a few hands later when I raised pre-flop with 3478 in late position. The chap who had commented checked and called flop and turn where I had two pair. The river made me a full house on a board something like 357J3. He checked, I bet pretty big, he called as expected – well, I am a bluffing sod! – and I won a nice pot. Without his earlier comment I would have won a much smaller pot, because I would have bet smaller throughout; scared that either he would fold, or that his calls on flop and turn were more meaningful than they really were.

His comment after that hand was that he put me on something completely different because of my pre-flop raise. Well, that’s one important reason why I raise hands like 3478, although the main reason is that a 56x flop would give me a big wrap straight draw.

All in all, a highly satisfying way to wrap up the night after some reasonable snooker earlier. Life feels good when you’re winning.

I printed off my 6-month history of deposits and withdrawals from my poker account yesterday. I’m looking forward to adding it all up’ though at the moment I have no idea whether it will turn out better or worse than I imagine. I would love to be able to print out how much rake I’ve paid in that time. That’s not something I’ve ever thought about much in the past - and there’s nothing I can do about it – but it would be interesting to know my value as a customer…

Meanwhile, the Sklansky book continues to bore me rigid.