Sometime yesterday, I decided that I was just throwing money away not getting in on the latest Party deposit bonus. I only had until midnight eastern to make a deposit to qualify, so I cashed out at as many places as I could to get the maximum bonus. Not enough cashouts made it to my Neteller account in time, so I only managed a big enough deposit to get $170 bonus, instead of the full $200. Most of that money came out of PokerNOW, so I’m going to be playing at the same tables now, just working off a bonus worth more than the rakeback. As soon as I’m done, the money goes back to PokerNOW (unless there’s a good bonus somewhere else).

Party recently changed the structure of their NL games. Due to the way they list them ($25NL, $50NL, etc.), it looked like what they did was lower the blinds. I didn’t really like that too much. I was happy playing no limit with .25/.50 blinds, and wanted to keep doing that. When the $25NL game went to .10/.25 blinds, I was a little annoyed. After thinking about it for a little longer, I realized that I could view it the same way as just allowing for a bigger buyin. The $50NL game now has .25/.50 blinds, so it’s the same game but with a higher maximum. If the games were listed by the blinds instead of the buyin, I might not have even noticed the change. My only worry with the change was that the games wouldn’t be as fishy, because people wouldn’t notice the change, or not want to get into a game with $50 (though you can still buy in short for $25 if you really want). Of course, I know at these levels the games will have plenty of fish, but there really need to be a lot if I wanted to maintain my 20.95 BB/100 that I had playing the game in February. 🙂

So far, so good. Looks like I had nothing to worry about. If anything, the players seem to have gotten even worse with the change. I was in the $50NL 6max game last night, and there was this one guy who was really awful. In about ten or fifteen minutes, he had dropped three buyins, for the most part playing crap hands. (One of the buyins was lost on a bad beat when he had KK vs AT all-on on a ten high flop.) Anyway, he had been showing down and losing lots of awful stuff. So when he pushed all in a few hands after another rebuy and I had QQ, I pretty much had to call him. Against anyone else at the table, I might have folded for so much money preflop (had already folded queens once preflop that night). Of course, that hand he had to have AA, and I doubled him up. Just my luck. He went on to double up again soon after and win a few more pots.

A little while later I almost tripled up when I made nut flush with KTs vs a jack high flush (only three diamonds on the board) and an AQ who had top pair. I never actually did any betting with this hand. I called a raise from the small blind, check-called with my draw on the flop, check-called with my flush on the turn. On the river, I was thinking about putting a bet out there, but I was pretty sure someone else would, so I checked. The big blind (who I had covered) went all-in, and the button (who had less than the big blind) called. All I could do was call with the nuts, and take down the pot. That put me in great shape at the table again. Then, the monster. The SB is the guy I doubled up earlier.

Party Poker No-Limit Hold’em, $0.50 BB (6 max, 5 handed) converter

Button ($58.55)
SB ($170.45)
BB ($48.15)
UTG ($46.55)
penner42 ($114.5)

Preflop: penner42 is MP with A♥, A♣. SB posts a blind of $0.25.
UTG calls $0.50, penner42 raises to $2.25, Button calls $2.25, SB (poster) calls $2, 1 fold, UTG folds.

Flop: ($7.75) J♦, J♥, A♦ (3 players)
SB checks, penner42 bets $2, Button calls $2, SB calls $2.

Turn: ($13.75) 8♥ (3 players)
SB checks, penner42 bets $4, Button calls $4, SB raises to $8, penner42 calls $4, Button calls $4.

River: ($37.75) 8♣ (3 players)
SB checks, penner42 bets $15, Button calls $15, SB raises to $158.20 (All-In), penner42 calls $87.25 (All-In), Button folds.

SB is returned $55.95 (uncalled).

Final Pot: $257.25

Results below:
SB has K♣ J♣ (full house, jacks full of eights).
penner42 has A♥ A♣ (full house, aces full of jacks).
Outcome: penner42 wins $257.25.

Obviously, this was a great hand for me. Preflop, I made the standard (pot) raise. After the flop, my only goal (of course) was to extract as much as possible out of the hand. Most people with aces would probably check the flop, so I didn’t. I made a weak bet at it compared to the size of the pot. I wanted to try to represent an AK, and appear afraid of the jack. On the turn, I did the same thing again. My small bet ($4 into a $13.75 pot) was designed to get a caller if someone only had an ace, and make it appear my hand wasn’t that strong. When I got checkraised another $4, I immediately knew the SB had a jack, and I would likely get all his money unless I made quads on the river to scare him (or he made quads on the river to beat me). The 8 on the river was a beautiful card. Only two hands could beat me (JJ, 88), but more importantly it meant only three hands could beat anyone who had a jack (without an ace kicker, AA, AJ, 88). He had to figure he had the best hand given my weak bets (but not checks to slowplay a monster) earlier. My bet on the river was chosen to get the button to call. I knew I was getting checkraised for a lot of chips. I figured the button probably had the case ace. As expected, the button called, and the SB went all-in. I took a little time before calling, in hopes that the button might as well, but the pot was plenty big for me.

I stuck around for another hour or so, and ended up leaving the table with over $300. So far, I’m making 28.75BB/100 in March at the .25/.50 NL 6max game (incidently, PokerTracker treats the two games as the same, because it sorts them by blinds, not buyin). I don’t expect this number to stay anywhere near this high, but I’m gonna ride the good run as long as I can. Oh, and I’m 440 out of 1192 hands done with clearing my bonus.

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