Party $25 NL. I'm UTG+2 and get AA. I raise to $3 after 1 limper. The CO calls and the rest fold. I've only been at the table 10 hands or so and the CO has been fairly aggressive but no firm read. Flop is JJ7 rainbow. I bet pot of $7 and CO calls. Turn is a 3. I have $13 left and he has me covered. What's your play?

Martin

I go all in. If he called me w/ a AJ, 77, or 33, then I am busted, but I can't imagine I am behind here and will lose my stack on a board like that against one opponent w/ the AA. Since the pot is $20 and you have $13 left, and I think you are still ahead here, all in is the best option.

Since he is calling down on the flop, I believe he probably has a pocket pair as well, making his outs few which is the situation you want to put your money in.

I checked and he put me all in. I folded here. Like I said, he seems to be fairly aggressive so I was surprised when he called my bet (expecting a fold or raise). I think I was probably too weak here but I thought he was probably calling my flop bet to trap me. If I played it again I think I would call on the turn.

Martin

I agree with iceman.

I said I would check...not fold. Your stack is too shallow to fold there. His bet doesnt mean he has a jack. His bet means he doesnt think you have anything because you checked. Thats the purpose of the check. To get him to bet when he might not have called.

If he has the jack, so be it, but you cant fold in that situation.

Sometimes things don't work out in the beginning, but all you need is to play more games and you will start to see patterns of play easier and quicker, and decision will become more obvious...as long as you continue to put together your game plan.

I have absolutely no idea. It's tried my patience to an absurd amount. So far my party/empire career has gone like this:

Joined party in September 2003. Started on the limit tables, ran my $100 buyin + bonus up into about a grand. 2/4 and then some 3/6 was the game. Played some 50NL too but wasn't keen on the party tables. Then I had a horrible downswing where I lost about 3/4 of that and cashed out.

Came back at some point when a bonus was offered, mid 2004 I think (without checking my records). Up and down for a while playing a variety of games. Played 50NL here and 100NL at cryptologic as my main games around the early and mid-summer, won consistently at crypto and did OK at party, but I had one horror run when I lost a ton of buyins in the space of a couple of days (three times set over set when my opponent caught his set after I was all in on the flop) and cashed out again in frustration (or did I lose my small active BR? Can't recall; I dont put a full BR on sites because I can top it up whenever I want and prefer the money in my bank).

Going back to limit HE, my main game in late 2003, in middle of 2004. Wanting to see if i could 4-table at 3/6 and make about $40 per hour doing that (a bit under 2BB/hr). Put in an initial BR or $1000 (yep I know $1800 is a better BR for 3/6) and to my horror lost about $800 of it in a flame of horrific beats in the space of about 3 or 4 days. Had a starting hand list (my own making) to stick to that was very tight, in an effort to play uber-solid poker and keep variance down (this was tighter than the hand lists published in most major holdem books, as well as the one given to starters at "the other site" that i looked at in retrospect). This didn't work. Cashed out again.

Had a big run playing omaha around august/september time as I made about $1500 playing all sorts. Mostly PLO and O8 I think. Cashed out some of that, at this point I am a slim winner at Party in my lifetime.

In October time I decided to start a new project, playing O8 limit (which I was really into at that point), 3/6 with an effort to working up to the juicy 10/20 tables (have the BR for 10/20 but i wanted to withdraw a lot at that point to buy a house, and also prove to myself i could work it up and beat the tables). That kinda stalled, never took any total hammerings but i played about 5-7 sessions and i think i was a winner in one of them. Didn't spill a lot of cash, maybe $500 or so and that idea kinda petered out. Cashed out of party as I was emptying poker accounts to fill up my savings.

November, I joined Empire. November was, up to that point, my worst month of 2004. I make $2000 or so most months, sometimes a bit more. I hit $5000 and beyond in october. Joined empire for the rake rebate (didnt have one at party). Put in $600 and lost that playing above the BR (again, not literally as I had plenty to reload with), then was frozen out for a few weeks waiting to get the OK on my account (i had to phone them, was a fuss). When I reloaded, I put in another errrrr $500 or so, mighta been $1000. Another very soar run and most of that has gone belly up too, I learnt in that time that the omaha games are nigh on unplayable with the absurd stacks they give you there. Played some 50NL and had another run of pretty poor luck (I had got PT in that time, it's telling me now that my BB/100 is less than 10 for the 50 buyins). Put some cash back into party for the reload bonus and made a coupla hundred on that, and then i gave up poker for a few weeks in december (my november i cleared $1500 but would've been comfortablyover $2000 had it not been for empire losses) after starting horrifically (was about $600 or 700 down at one point). I played some 25NL for recreation more than anything, won big for a while and actually cleared off most of my losses for december. Since new year, I've been hitting the 25NL again (losing), I played a load of SnGs and got my butt handed to me (not enough for a clear picture, however, and had a lot of 5ths, 4ths, 2nd and 3rds without any wins, see rant pages in "anything goes"). After a bad day of PLO8 and a nailing on the SnGs a few days back my BR here dwindled to $115 or so; I put $1000 in to pick up the january bonus, and intend to play that off at 25NL and then get out of there until any more bonuses are offered. On the plus side, I have about $200 in rake rebate coming to me this month, as well as the bonus. I will cashout after that and wait for any more deposit bonuses before playing at these sites any more.

Overall, I have 7500 hands logged in PT since November time (I believe), and am a winner on these (a bit under $1000) tho no idea how as my party/empire money has been dwindling severely in that time (I guess losses at omaha and SnGs must be to blame, my record keeping died a sorry death during my bad run in december, hence my new year resolution to really tighten up on that bigtime). My 25NL is (no idea how) somewhere in the 15BB/100 (30BB/100) on PT, i'm guessing thats around 15real BB/hr or so, although I dont remember winning much here in ages. I cannot say whether I am a winning player overall at party/empire over the year; at one point I worked it out and I was making something ridiculous like $1/table/hr (estimate) after several hundred table hours across the year, though that was before my most recent yucky run. I am relatively sure I am overall in my lifetime, across all games, a losing or marginally break even player at party/empire not including bonuses. Certainly, it's my worst site by an absolute mile. Last year I averaged (including some lean months at the start when I was mostly playing 1/2 and 2/4 limit games) about $30 per hour across the year, probably closer to $50 playing my best games. The yearly average would've been somewhere between 5 and 10 bucks per hour more if i had not played at party/empire at all. I posted my yearly BR report somewhere here, and on the "other site", I believe my final total was about $25,000; had I played at stars, cryptologic or even UB during the hours I played party/empire (though the tables were not always good; the lure of party is that the tables ALWAYS look juicey) I would probably have made about another 20% or so on top of that, give or take.

So, winning player or not, that's my story

Monk
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