And away they go!

Good start to the new year. I played the 40/80 on Friday night and picked up 4.5k in a about 7 hours of play. Then played the 20/40 on Saturday night and won 500 in about 7 hours of play. On Saturday, I got buried early and ended up losing 3+ racks before I bought another 2 racks, putting myself 5 racks into the game, before I made a raging comeback, and then in the last 30 minutes or so pulling ahead before calling it quits early in the am hours.

I played a couple of interesting hands, this one being the most interesting. Helen, the semi-regular Chinese player, who got killed in the 40 on Friday night, was playing again on Saturday night. She was losing again, and on massive tilt. Helen is a massive LAG, but when not on tilt, plays a decent game. Lisa a very nice caucasian woman, is like the polar opposite of Helen. Very tight pre-flop, and very cautious post-flop, and will only raise the nuts post-flop, and does other things to lose value post-flop.

In any case, early Sunday morning, we are playing 4-handed, when this hand came up. Helen opened, I 3-bet 9s9h on the button, Lisa capped the small blind, Freddy folded his big-blind, Helen and I both called. Flop comes 2s 4s 6h. Lisa bet, Helen called, and I called. Turn was the 7d. Lisa bet, Helen raised, and I folded. River was the 9d, and the river checked through. Lisa rolls As6s and Helen had pocket eights to win the pot.

Later that night, I either played this hand like an expert or a massive fish, not sure which yet. Down to 3-handed, and Helen and I both have overs, so we're playing 40/80 when it gets heads-up between us. Freddy folded his button, Helen raised the small blind, and I called with 65o in the big blind. Flop comes Js 5s 2d. Helen bet, I called. Turn comes Jh. Helen bet, and I called. River comes 7c. Helen now checks, I bet, Helen check-raises, and I tank for a good minute or so, before finally calling. Helen rolls As4s for the massive draw that blanked off, and tried an elaborate check-raise river bluff, that I snapped off. Had Helen, just bet the river, I think there's a very good chance I fold on the river. I originally value-bet the river, expected to get called by good ace-highs, some king-highs, and possibly pocket 3's or 4's. Also, I was trying to fold out better 5s if possible. When she check-raised me, her line at that point made no sense to me, and I was trying to figure out what she thought my hand was, and if she actually thought she had a value check-raise, or was trying a river check-raise bluff. Her being on tilt and losing, also certainly played a factor in my deciding to call. She even insulted me after the hand, telling me that I am such a calling station. :-)

Happy New Year!

Hit a another royal flush on New Year's Eve for 20k. That's my second royal flush this year, so I think I am way ahead on expectation for hitting royals playing Jacks or Better video poker.

Haven't played any poker since the new year started. Will probably get my first session in tonight.

Got to play at Canterbury Park while out in Minnesota for the holidays. Played 3 sessions while I was out there. Won 374 in the 15/30 one night, had a big score of 5330 in the 30/60 followed up by a big loss of 3991 in the 30/60 a couple of days later. Overall ended up 1713 after leaving Minnesota, so wasn't a bad trip in the end. Mostly paid for the 4 plane tickets I had to buy for the family to get out there.

Going over the black jack results for last year, turned out kind of meh. I finished up, but not by a ton, relatively speaking. As I was going through the results, I noticed that if I had stuck to a 10k session loss limit, I would have ended up with a 65k positive swing. Not that it matters, as that is just looking into the past and data mining with a bias, which doesn't account for much.

In any case I have been on a mini-rush of late gambling wise. From poker since December I have picked up $1967, and in blackjack 27.5k, in video poker 20k, and in craps another 11k, or so for a total of 60.5k to finish off the year. Not too shabby.