Suckers!

I have been mixing my play between Poker Blue and Full Tilt lately. To me, there is not better place to play ring games than FTP. I like the layout, the graphics, sounds, basically everything. Yet, I can't stay away from the fishiness of Poker Blue and the hope they have another freeroll promotion for a WPT or similar event.

Only problem with PB is the number of players on the site. Unlike Poker Mountain Morgue (which I logged onto this weekend to find 8 people playing free games), they usually have about 500 people logged in. Not much but enough to have some games going. Unfortunately there are just 2 tables at 2/4, with a big waiting list on at least one. It seems people sign up and never play. I jump on anything with 6 players so it doesn't matter too much but I would rather play two tables. I am up over $200 there in a week (roughly 8 hours of play) and would like to play more. Maybe I should take a stab at the 3/6. That usually is running with 7 players.

I ran into a bad spot last night. Did ok instead of very well. The problem was getting value bets in on the river. I ran into two beats that set me back a bit. With A K I raise up from late position and the limpers call. Flop of K J 7. I bet and two call. Turn is a rag. I bet, they call. River is a 6. I bet, they call. The clown playing J 6 soooted takes down the pot. Now I didn't like that but I didn't mind it either. That told me a lot of what this guy was doing. Same with the guy who called down every bet with 5 5 and all overcards on the board. People just cannot fold a pair no matter how many overcards are on the board.

The issue I now noticed was that I was not making that final bet on the river anymore because of that damn J 6 sooooted. It probably cost me 4 or 5 bets. I found myself fearing players hitting their second pair on the river and check raising me. It took about 5 hands to get over it.

I then went to Full Tilt and proceeded to get my act together. However, every time I put that value bet in, I found myself losing to the suckout. Thankfully, they weren't raising me. If it weren't for one bad hand ( K K losing to A Q with me paying off the damn A on two streets), I would have had a great night.

But when it was all said and done, I learned a lesson. If you think you have the best hand, you must bet it. You are going to win the pot more times than not. When you don't, move on. That extra bet can be the difference between profit and losses because they will add up.
Don't let the suckouts change you game.