O-Poker

I was a little tired last night and looking for a change of pace. I didn't think I would be playing my best but wanted to play a little, so I played the following (mostly 1 table at a time):

$24 MTT on FTP - I haven't been doing well in MTTs lately and wanted to try a few new things. I figured a $24 MTT was a good place to experiment. Everything was working well until I ran AQ into A2 and A2 caught 2 pair. 340 +/- out of 1,150 +/-.

1,800 FPP turbo 30 player MTT on Pokerstars (paid $215 to top 4) - My 77 was no match for 66 all-in preflop. A six on the flop and it was all over for me. It didn't even phase me since it was a freeroll.

I was feeling a little better and decided to play a turbo 9 player $220 SNG on FTP. I wanted to work on my SNG play a little since I will probably being playing some of the PCA double shootouts. The SNG was pretty entertaining because Jeff Madsen was at the table. One of the guys at the table was talking trash to him and he was jabbing back at the guy. I wish I would have saved the chat since it was pretty funny. Madsen told the guy he should be playing $10 SNGs instead of $200 - I was surprised that he appeared to be letting the guy get in his head. Like in all turbo SNGs, you have to win races late to win. I finished 3rd for a small profit when my 1010 lost to AQ.

It was still pretty early and I didn't feel like playing more than one table. I knew that I would be a little too impatient so I sat at a 2/4 NL 6 Max table and waiting for a player to join since FTP doesn't have any dedicated 2/4 NL Heads Up tables. It didn't take long for a guy to sit with $160. I think I busted him 4 or 5 hands later with a boat vs. a straight and he left. Another guy joined with $80 and went all in every hand. I called him the 3rd time with 99 and it held up against his AJ. Once the table filled, I left and went to a new table. It was strange, the 2nd player to join the table always seemed to buy-in for the minimum ($80) or the default ($160) and either played way too tight for heads up or way too loose for heads up.

About a year ago, I played a lot 6 max NL cash games on Pokerstars. I used to always start up tables and it seemed like they had the same trend over there - a player would join the table with either the min or default buy-in or buy-in for the remaining of their balance (ex - $103.80). They always seemed to either play too tight or too loose. This made it very easy to exploit them and get all their chips either quickly or slowly bleed them dry (not to mention how +EV situtations like this are).

I think I might start playing some more HU cash games against the short buy-ins when I am looking for a change of pace. It is pretty profitable and helps me stay off the auto-pilot mode I sometimes get into when 4 tabling cash games.