2:14pm: (PN) The year of the pro continues as Scotts “you call it gonna be all ova baby” Nguyen wins his fifth bracelet. Here is how it went down:

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It took five days and an amazing final-table performance to do it, but Scotty Nguyen claimed his fifth World Series of Poker bracelet with his victory in Event #45, the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. World Championship. He outlasted a final table featuring several other bracelet winners, Player of the Year candidates and some of the biggest cash-game players in the world on the way to the bracelet, the $1,989,120 first prize, and the Chip Reese Memorial Trophy.

Nguyen started the final table just slightly behind Erick Lindgren in chips, with the seating assignments and chip stacks as follows:

Seat 1: Matt Glantz — 1,445,000
Seat 2: Huck Seed — 1,200,000
Seat 3: Patrick Bueno — 695,000
Seat 4: Lyle Berman — 1,430,000
Seat 5: Scotty Nguyen — 3,535,000
Seat 6: Barry Greenstein — 1,955,000
Seat 7: Michael DeMichele — 905,000
Seat 8: Erick Lindgren — 3,680,000

Patrick Bueno started the final table on the short stack after hovering near the top of the leader board for several days. He busted early in the final table when he got the last of his chips in the middle in a razz hand against Erick Lindgren. Lindgren started with 8-7-2, and Bueno held 4-K-A on third street. Lindgren made an 8-low by the end of the hand, while Bueno paired his four on fourth street and bricked out the rest of the way to finish in eighth place ($230,880).

Play was deliberate and the stacks were deep, so significant time passed between each elimination. Huck Seed was next to fall when he and Michael DeMichele tangled in a hand of stud hi/lo. DeMichele had the bring-in, and Seed called. DeMichele led out on fourth, and Seed called again. Seed had a pair of nines showing on fifth street when he led out, and DeMichele called. DeMichele called on every subsequent street, and tabled a flush and a low to send Seed to the rail in seventh place ($284,160).

Barry Greenstein and Erick Lindgren went into this tournament in heavy contention for the Player of the Year title, and Greenstein took the lead when he was eliminated in sixth place ($355,200). Greenstein, who cashed in this event all three times it was played while making the final table twice, busted to Scotty Nguyen in a stud hi/lo hand that saw action on every street. Nguyen completed with [x-x] , and Greenstein called with the in the door. Greenstein led out on every street, and Nguyen called him all the way down to seventh street, when Greenstein fired out the last of his chips with a board of . Nguyen called and tabled [7-7] [6] for trip sevens. Greenstein held two pair, aces and fours, but no low. Nguyen’s trips were good enough to send Greenstein to the rail in sixth.

It took a while for the next elimination to take place, and it was multiple bracelet winner and “Big Game” regular Lyle Berman who busted in fifth place ($444,000). The action was capped on third street in razz when Berman, Scotty Nguyen and Michael DeMichele engaged in a raising frenzy. Berman was all in on the last bet, and DeMichele fired on every street. Nguyen called, and both players checked seventh street. DeMichele tabled 8-7-5-4-3, and both opponents mucked. Nguyen still had a healthy stack, but Berman was eliminated.

Matt Glantz got all his chips in on the flop in Omaha hi/lo against Scotty Nguyen holding . Nguyen tabled on a flop of , for the nut low draw and a naked A-K to Glantz’ pair of tens. The on the turn gave Nguyen a pair of aces and a flush draw, and Glantz was in trouble. The river made Nguyen’s flush, and he scooped the pot as Glantz was eliminated in fourth place ($568,320).

After Glantz was eliminated, the tournament entered marathon mode. The pace of eliminations had been fairly steady to that point, with 20 or 30 hands going by between bustouts. Here, nearly six hours passed between Glantz’ elimination in fourth place and Erick Lindgren’s third-place bustout.

It took nearly 200 hands of three-way action before Lindgren and Scotty Nguyen tangled for the final time. In his final hand, Lindgren completed on third street with the in the door. Scotty Nguyen raised, showing the , and Lindgren called. Nguyen fired again on fourth street with showing. Lindgren had up and called. The on fifth street gave Lindgren the high board, and he bet out. Nguyen, with showing, raised and Lindgren called all in. Lindgren showed []- for a pair of eights, and Nguyen tabled a pair of nines. Lindgren caught no help on sixth or seventh street, and was eliminated in third place for $781,440. Lindgren also vaulted past Barry Greenstein on the Player of the Year points list with his third-place finish.

Scotty Nguyen took more than a 4:1 chip lead into heads-up play with the young Michael DeMichele. The 22-year-old Connecticut native was playing his second WSOP final table, and was guaranteed his largest cash ever just by locking up second place. In fact, his cash in Event #45 was greater than the sum total of his live winnings up to that point. The chip stacks looked like this as heads-up play began:

Scotty Nguyen: 12,140,000
Michael DeMichele: 2,660,000

It didn’t take long for Scotty Nguyen to put his big stack to use and bust his final opponent to claim bracelet #5. After about ten hands of heads-up play, DeMichele raised preflop in hold’em with . Nguyen thought for a moment before saying, in inimitable fashion, “It’s gonna be all over, baby.” Nguyen raised with , and DeMichele called all in. The flop came down , and Nguyen was in a dominating lead. The came on the turn, and DeMichele could only win with a three on the river. The showed instead, and Michael DeMichele was eliminated in second place ($1,243,200).

Scotty Nguyen earned $1,989,120 for his victory, and the right to call himself the world’s greatest poker player… for a year, at least. The Prince of Poker beat one of the toughest fields in poker on his way to his fifth WSOP bracelet and the trophy honoring one of the true legends of the game, Chip Reese.

Start a Clean Slate at a New Room, a New Sharkscope, and Keep HFL Free in the Process

4:16pm: Perhaps one of the most overlooked aspects of heads up poker online is the presence of tells on both sides. Think about it, how many times have you possibly tipped off your hand in the last 6 months or so by betting/raising too fast, too slow, or perhaps by not raising at all? Let’s take a look at which tells are obvious, how you can spot them and also how to conceal these tendencies. Keep in mind these tells are what I call “level 1″ tells, which operate under the assumption that your opponent doesn’t know that you know these are tells. An example of a “level 2″ tell would be something from the perspective that your opponent knows that you know quick betting indicates weakness, so they will quick bet a hand in strength to intentionally give off weakness.

1. Weakness Tells

• Quick bets. Like I mentioned above, those who bet their hand rather quickly are usually holding nothing more than one pair. Betting so firm, so fast is an attempt to communicate to you, “my hand is so strong that I don’t even have to think about betting”. Good players can see through this, and will usually make a play or, at the very least, optimize their play for what they assume their opponent is holding.
• The min bet. Don’t worry if you think that someone is only doing it to trap you with an attempt to force you into a raise. In all likelihood, the person you’re playing is not thinking that much, so if you need to raise for value, don’t be afraid to do so. Also don’t be afraid to try an take the pot from someone who keeps doing it repeatedly.
• Overbetting the pot on the FLOP. When I call this a “weak tell”, I might be using the term loosely, but I consider one pair to be a weak holding postflop, so by definition this tell is spot on. Notice that I emphasized the word flop, which we will get into later. In this case, usually when people overbet the flop, they are usually holding a pair, but are not necessarily looking for a call and are usually dreading a shove. If you can beat one pair in this spot, you are nearly going to be good 100% of the time in this spot.
• Quick checking. Usually when someone checks very quickly, they just want to move on to the next hand. When someone takes less than a second to check, I will usually take a stab at the pot - with probably a 66% success rate, which gives me good faith in this as a tell of weakness.

2. Strength Tells

• 4x raise preflop. Some things in life are given: death, taxes, and the fact that when someone raises 4x the pot preflop, they are probably holding a small to mid pocket pair. People usually raise more with hands that are harder to play, so they really don’t feel like seeing a flop with hands like this most of the time. A lot of people have trouble playing 77-JJ, and they’d much rather take it down uncontested because they won’t know what to do when overcards come out. Only problem with this method is that they will either win a small pot, or lose a big one. Pay attention to this next time because if you have QQ+, you can shove and will almost always get snap called by someone who is behind 4:1 who assumes you have AK or AQ.
• Long delays followed by betting. When people do this, it’s usually an attempt to communicate to you that their hand is weak enough that they need time to think about betting. When someone does this, I try to stay away unless I’m confident my hand is stronger.
• Preflop limp re raises. You’ve got KJoff in the big blind. Your opponent limps, and you want to make him pay for it, because after all you’ve got a pretty good hand heads up. That is, until he comes back over the top after having initially limped into the pot. If this happens, odds are your opponent perceives you as aggressive and knew you were going to raise pre flop. He also doesn’t believe you will have the disclipline to lay down a marginal hand in this spot - which you should - because he is more than likely not bluffing.
• The huge river overbet. Ever find yourself in a situation where the pot is like 150-250, and all of a sudden, randomly on the river your opponent fires out like 540 into a relatively small pot leaving you wondering what in the world is going on? After all, you just rivered two pair - this seems like an easy call, right? Wrong. More often than not, your opponent is holding a minimum of top two in this situation.
• “Just calling” on every street, followed by a huge bet/raise on the river. Good players will do this when they are weak because they will assume that you will assume that you have just been slowplayed, and are attempting to get you to lay your hand down. Most of the time people aren’t this advanced, and being as such you really have just been slowplayed. It’s probably a good idea to lay your hand down in this spot.

If you find yourself doing ANY of the above, drastically cutting these tactics out of your play can work wonders for improving you ROI. Good players can spot these things, and even sometimes average players. What I used to do is to keep a bunch of small post it notes next to my monitor, and anytime I caught myself giving off a tell, I would make a note on my monitor to make a conscious effort not to do it the next time. Tells are nothing more than bad habits, and most of them come natural. This is why you have to literally go out of your way not to do some of these things, until eventually — not giving off tells has now become a good habit for you.

Spotting these basic tells can also improve you ROI much the same way. Since we can’t see things such as facial expressions and body language online, we have to use the only tools we have at our disposal, such as timing tells and betting patterns. The tells listed above are very basic and are only a small part of equation, hence the name “level 1″ tells. Stay tuned later on for some tells on a more advanced level.

Start a Clean Slate at a New Room, a New Sharkscope, and Keep HFL Free in the Process

4:13pm: Annie Duke opened up recently to PokerNews.com regarding the whole UB/AP ordeal, and also the direction of online poker in general. Whether or not you support UB/AP, the one thing that cannot be disputed is that the company running these two sites has made some mistakes. Are you ready to forgive? Annie Duke is, and here’s why:

4:11am: I’ve been asking for a session that was, for a change, easy from start to finish without having to start out in a hole and that’s exactly what I got on Thursday night. This is in sharp contrast to what seems like a streak of 9-10 sessions of myself starting at least $300-$500 down, before (almost always) coming back to finish in the +. On the very first hand I played in the post (Ks4s), I flopped top two. The action is as follows:

In middle position, I check the option in the post, and 5 people see the flop (Kc 4c 2d). The blinds check to me, and I bet $25. Two gentleman with position on me decide to call, and the two blinds fold. The turn was a brick for all intents and purposes: Qh. I lead out for $55 this time and both players behind me once again decide to call. At this point, I don’t want to see a Queen or a club on the river. Much to my delight, the river brought the 4d and I decide to lead out once more — this time for $100. The man immediately to my left, who was obviously on a flush draw, instantly folds and the player to his left decides to call. I turn over the boat, and drag the pot.

While it’s almost never a good thing (to be results oriented), it never hurts your psychological mindset when you immediately start a session up — $275 in my case.

The session would eventually end up $525, as I picked up a couple of small pots from this point and one medium sized one. I only lost one hand at showdown all night. All in all, it was a pretty good night that I decided to end early due to being tired and not wanting to sacrifice my quality of play.

In other news, the sixth video tutorial is set to be released on Monday, June 30th. It will feature one of my matches at the $100 level. Stay tuned.

3:11pm: Well, after having played 28 $100 hu sngs, I am happy to report the following observations:

• If there’s a huge difference in skill level between the $100 husng players and the $50 husng players, I haven’t seen it yet.
• People in the $100s take longer to make decisions, and generally fold more than the players in the $50s do - which will open the door for me to be a little more aggressive.
• I don’t feel at all uncomfortable with the stakes, and I feel totally relaxed when playing - which is huge in playing winning heads up poker.
• My guess is that a lot of these people I’m playing are at the end of their bankroll, and are just trying to double up or pack it in, and is causing them to play a lot more cautiously than I thought the $100 players might.
• I am 19-9 so far, with a 29% ROI so far (see graph below). This is definitely not going to hold long term, nor do I expect it to, but it’s a lot better than starting out with trouble.

I am off to play a live 2-5 NL session. Good luck to everyone grinding tonight.

I will also announce the date of the release of the next (sixth) video tutorial when I return from my session tonight, so stay tuned if you’re interested in that.

5:47pm: HFL is running a promotion, of sorts. Those of you looking to pick up a little extra cash to pad the bankroll are in luck. All you have to do is be one of the first five between now and tomorrow at 5:47pm CST to sign up for Cake Poker, Full Tilt or Bodog using one of HFL’s links, successfully deposit and play at least 10 heads up sngs (at any stake) and HFL will ship you $50, no strings attached. The money will be mailed to you in the form of a cashiers check.

I will update this post with the countdown of slots left to take advantage of the offer. A slot is considered to be taken and will be removed when each person completes their first deposit.

For more details, use the contact form or contact trujm at trujm@holdemforaliving.com

Current Slots left: 1/5

*EDIT*, as of 2:39pm on 6/26 there is only one slot left. Who wants it?

*EDIT*, offer is over. Thanks to the 4 people who participated. Enjoy your free tutoring and free $50 (after deposit is made).

1:28am: Unfortunately, due to running HFL and also playing live poker 3 nights a week, and running a part time Ebay business 6 months out of the year, I am unable to put in the volume online in heads up sngs that used to. So how did I put in the volume before life got hectic?

By Using the “NFL football season” method.

The NFL is one of the most popular sports leagues in the world. Being as such, most people are aware that there are 16 games in an NFL season. Keeping this in mind, this method would mold each poker session into a microcosm of sorts of an NFL season.

Let me explain. If you follow NFL football with any sort of regularity, then every year you go through the ups and downs that is an NFL season. You also probably don’t panic right off the bat if your team starts out on the wrong foot — say, with a 1-3 record. If they win the next one, they are only one game under .500. The same holds true for heads up sngs. If you pre-commit to this set number of games each day, I find that people usually hold their composure better in a contained environment/system such as this, than they do if they are just arbitrarily playing without any real plan or system.

Any time you get serious and organized about your poker endeavors, it’s almost always a good thing. By employing this method, you’ve basically guaranteed yourself a fighting chance of beating variance because it is focused more on results at the end of the day rather than results by the hour. This is not to say that even less-than-desirable end of the day results mean anything, but it’s certainly better to put more emphasis on doing well over a 16 game stretch than it is to put emphasis on doing well on a game-to-game basis. In addition, this method also helps you stick to volume commitments. So many times we say “if I play X hours per day, and make X dollars per match, I should make X dollars per year”. However, those figures mean nothing if you don’t stick to your volume. This method will ensure that you will make [avg. profit/game] x [16] x [5] dollars per week if you play and “NFL season” per day, 5 days a week.

So let’s say you play $20 heads up sngs, and you average $3 profit per match over a 1,000 game sample size. Using this method, you will ensure that you make $3 x 16 = $48 per day.  Play 5 seasons a week, and you’re suddenly looking at a near guaranteed profit of $240 a week, which is also $960 a month. That’s not exactly chump change.

Like I said before, doing well in heads up is nothing more than a series of mind tweaks and mental manipulations you do with yourself in order to stay in the right mindset, because mindset is everything in heads up poker.

So to this I say at least give it a try - and everyday can be football season year round.

2:13pm: This is an article featured on P5s, which is finally some good news from a legislative perspective regarding poker. Let’s hope this momentum keeps charging forward.

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On Friday, June 20, major news broke from Capitol Hill. The House Financial Services Committee announced that it will mark up HR 5767 to tomorrow, June 24th, at 10:00am ET. Now dubbed the “Payments System Protection Act” according to the Committee website, the bill is co-sponsored by Congressmen Barney Frank (D-MA) and Ron Paul (R-TX) and would prohibit the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve from enforcing the UIGEA. In the mark up session, amendments will be added to the existing text of the legislation and any revisions can be made and discussed. It’s been a long time coming since a Committee hearing back in April. PocketFives.com sat down with Michael Waxman, Spokesperson for the Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative, and John Pappas, Executive Director of the Poker Players Allaince, about the latest news.

Waxman was elated that the Committee was set to mark up the bill next week: “This is an acknowledgement that there’s no way, given the freedom of the internet, you’ll be able to stop people from gambling online. Millions of people continue to do so. It’s an acknowledgement that it is a burden to turn to the U.S. Financial Services industry to be the police and stop people from gambling online. Back in April, we had a hearing where representatives from the Financial Services Committee said that this would be a burden and it’s unlikely that we can stop people from gambling online. Regulators said they didn’t feel that this would be a law that is enforceable. We’re encouraged that Congress is taking the next step to change course and develop a smarter approach.”

Poker Players Alliance Executive Director John Pappas, whose lobbying group has been hard at work fighting for the rights of online poker players on Capitol Hill, commented to PocketFives.com: “We are pleased that the Committee will have a serious discussion and vote on the merits of the UIGEA. The PPA and others have continued to say that UIGEA was poorly written public policy doomed for failure. It is now becoming even clearer how unworkable and burdensome this law has become. Stopping UIGEA in its tracks is the right first step towards responsible regulation of Internet poker. We hope the full Committee will vote unanimously for H.R. 5767.”

HR 5767 is up to 20 co-sponsors, including Neil Abercrombie and Stephen Lynch, who signed on June 19th. Here’s a look at the current roster of co-sponsors along with the Congressional district they represent and the date they became a co-sponsor:

Rep Abercrombie, Neil [HI-1] - 6/19/2008
Rep Ackerman, Gary L. [NY-5] - 4/24/2008
Rep Baca, Joe [CA-43] - 5/15/2008
Rep Berkley, Shelley [NV-1] - 4/24/2008
Rep Capuano, Michael E. [MA-8] - 5/15/2008
Rep Carnahan, Russ [MO-3] - 5/15/2008
Rep Clay, Wm. Lacy [MO-1] - 4/24/2008
Rep Cohen, Steve [TN-9] - 5/22/2008
Rep Filner, Bob [CA-51] - 4/24/2008
Rep Gonzalez, Charles A. [TX-20] - 5/15/2008
Rep Gutierrez, Luis V. [IL-4] - 4/24/2008
Rep Honda, Michael M. [CA-15] - 4/24/2008
Rep King, Peter T. [NY-3] - 4/24/2008
Rep Lynch, Stephen F. [MA-9] - 6/19/2008
Rep McGovern, James P. [MA-3] - 4/24/2008
Rep Moran, James P. [VA-8] - 4/24/2008
Rep Paul, Ron [TX-14] - 4/10/2008
Rep Perlmutter, Ed [CO-7] - 5/15/2008
Rep Rothman, Steven R. [NJ-9] - 5/22/2008
Rep Wexler, Robert [FL-19] - 4/24/2008

Waxman added, “I believe that Chairman Barney Frank has brought this bill forward because he believes that there is support for the legislation. At the hearing, we saw members on both sides of the aisle asking good questions. We hope that they’re in a position to address their concerns.” The length of time that the bill would take to reach the House floor is up in the air. With 2008 being an election year, there is a limited amount of time left until members adjourn to begin campaigning.

11:16pm: Pick up any poker book — and I do mean ANY — and I guarantee you that you will find written at least five times written in different ways that you should always be raising the button when only the blinds remain, and nearly 100% of the time heads up. Time and time again, you heed their warning, and never stop pounding the big blind with your button raises but it never seems to translate into anything more than you playing a big pot with a hand you have no idea how to play postflop, am I right?

Anyone who has seen my tutorials quickly remarks about the odd number of times I limp (for the most part in the early blinds), and are equally as baffled at how this strategy can translate into such a positively-sloped profit graph.

Raising is traditionally to be taken as a sign of strength, and limping as a sign of weakness. However, recently in poker there has been more of a shift towards each one indicating the opposite. Fortunately for you, most people are still unaware of this fact, which will allow you do this:

Setup Hand #1:

PokerStars Game #18343957608: Tournament #93189771, $100+$5 Hold’em No Limit - Match Round I, Level II (15/30) - 2008/06/24 - 00:03:12 (ET)
Table ‘93189771 1′ 2-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: trujm (2230 in chips)
Seat 2: DGDeuce11 (770 in chips)
trujm: posts small blind 15
DGDeuce11: posts big blind 30
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to trujm [9c 7c]
trujm: calls 15
DGDeuce11: raises 740 to 770 and is all-in
trujm: folds
Uncalled bet (740) returned to DGDeuce11
DGDeuce11 collected 60 from pot
DGDeuce11: doesn’t show hand
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 60 | Rake 0
Seat 1: trujm (button) (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 2: DGDeuce11 (big blind) collected (60)

Setup Hand #2:

PokerStars Game #18343939281: Tournament #93189771, $100+$5 Hold’em No Limit - Match Round I, Level II (15/30) - 2008/06/24 - 00:02:06 (ET)
Table ‘93189771 1′ 2-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: trujm (2585 in chips)
Seat 2: DGDeuce11 (415 in chips)
trujm: posts small blind 15
DGDeuce11: posts big blind 30
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to trujm [7c 9h]
trujm: calls 15
DGDeuce11: raises 385 to 415 and is all-in
trujm: folds
Uncalled bet (385) returned to DGDeuce11
DGDeuce11 collected 60 from pot
DGDeuce11: doesn’t show hand
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 60 | Rake 0
Seat 1: trujm (button) (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 2: DGDeuce11 (big blind) collected (60)

The Kill:

PokerStars Game #18343981563: Tournament #93189771, $100+$5 Hold’em No Limit - Match Round I, Level II (15/30) - 2008/06/24 - 00:04:38 (ET)
Table ‘93189771 1′ 2-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: trujm (2320 in chips)
Seat 2: DGDeuce11 (680 in chips)
trujm: posts small blind 15
DGDeuce11: posts big blind 30
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to trujm [Kh As]
trujm: calls 15
DGDeuce11: raises 650 to 680 and is all-in
trujm: calls 650
*** FLOP *** [4s Tc 7d]
*** TURN *** [4s Tc 7d] [7c]
*** RIVER *** [4s Tc 7d 7c] [9s]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
DGDeuce11: shows [6c Ah] (a pair of Sevens)
trujm: shows [Kh As] (a pair of Sevens - Ace+King kicker)
trujm collected 1360 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 1360 | Rake 0
Board [4s Tc 7d 7c 9s]
Seat 1: trujm (button) (small blind) showed [Kh As] and won (1360) with a pair of Sevens
Seat 2: DGDeuce11 (big blind) showed [6c Ah] and lost with a pair of Sevens

There’s a certain point in a heads up sng where grind your opponent down to the point where they will start open shoving — either on the button or when you limp into the pot. When I limped the first two hands, I was relatively sure he was at this point, and would indeed soon start shoving. I needed to implant the idea that limping equals weakness into his head, so I made some loose calls preflop knowing that I was probably going to have to fold them. This was done, of course, with the hopes that I would eventually wake up with a hand (which I did) and would play the hand the exact same way that I did when I was truly weak — to induce a shove. Our opponent bit, and he put his money in as a big time dog. The hand held, and I won the match.

The moral of the story is that the problem a lot of people have with limping sometimes simply has more to do with ego trips, and commitment to play “power poker” than it does with actually using it effectively. There’s a time and a place to pound the big blind, but you’d be surprised at the whole new set of tools available to you when you limp into the pot a lot. A good portion of the time you will get even more action this way.

Try it sometime.

There’s more than one way to skin a cat.

3:57am: Don’t ask me how I did it, but I finished up nearly $200 on a night where I should have finished down — big time. The bad news was that I was completely card dead all night long. The good news is that because of this, it made nearly all of my decisons really easy and prevented me from losing a lot on any one single hand.

The hand of the night:

Ks3s on the button. 6 people limp preflop. I am the 7th person to enter the pot, and eventually 9 people saw the flop, which was Kc 5s Jd. Everyone checks to me, and I’m relatively sure my King is no good at this point, so I check hoping to spike a 3 or to pick up a spade draw. The turn is 10s. Someone in early position leads out for $35, and 3 people call. I thought about raising, but I didn’t want to scare anyone off in case a spade that puts a 4 card straight on the board hits.

The river is Qs. Everyone checks to me, and I bet $75 — and I get two callers, one of them having the straight as I suspected.

The rest of the night consisted basically of me perfecting the art of picking spots to take down small pots with air, and also perfecting the art of folding pre flop. I can’t remember a single night where my “% of flops seen” was so low in a very long time. The night ended with FINALLY (after 8 hours of play) picking up a pocket pair higher than tens (QQ). I made it $40 on the button, and was called by three people. The flop brought an overcard (King), and everyone checked to me. I checked behind everyone, and hit my set of queens on the turn. Once again, everyone checks and I bet $75 and everyone folds.

When it was all said and done, I counted my chips and to my amazement I was up $185. It’s amazing how bad you can run and still get away with a winning session, as long as you don’t get outdrawn or lose any big pots.

I might finish off the night with a couple of $100 hu sngs — that is, if some players deep in the red register before me. When moving up in stakes, I highly suggest treading lightly and only playing those in which you have a decided edge.

More later…