Those Cold Deck Blues

Won't bore you with my tale of woe, suffice to say that if I were of the "online poker is rigged" belief system, I'd have plenty of evidence. Last night I saw one guy quadruple his buy-in playing 81 VPIP and hitting the flop on well over half his hands. Today another doubled his buy-in the same way. (Oddly enough, when I tracked the second guy down a half hour later he had just lost every penny at the 2/4 table. That's instant karma for ya. /images/graemlins/grin.gif)

Today I had two extremely piscine tables (avg ~35 VPIP, and few tighties to take the average down), but my game went rolling downhill again until I took Barry Greenstein's advice and loosened up a bit more than I normally would preflop, and tightened up a bit more postflop. That seems to have turned things around, but I still need to check for leaks.

In both of these hands, I was up against extremely loose players. In both cases, an odd betting pattern put me off.

Hand 1:

UTG is 55/10, basically spewing chips.

Party Poker 1/2 Hold'em (9 max, 8 handed) FTR converter on zerodivide.cx (http://www.zerodivide.cx/converter)

Preflop: Hero is MP1 with J/images/graemlins/spade.gif, J/images/graemlins/diamond.gif. UTG posts a blind of $1.50.
UTG (poster) checks, <font color="#666666">1 fold</font>, <font color="#CC3333">Hero raises</font>, <font color="#666666">5 folds</font>, UTG calls.

Flop: (6 SB) 2/images/graemlins/club.gif, T/images/graemlins/spade.gif, Q/images/graemlins/heart.gif <font color="#0000FF">(2 players)</font>
UTG checks, <font color="#CC3333">Hero bets</font>, UTG calls.

Turn: (4 BB) 3/images/graemlins/club.gif <font color="#0000FF">(2 players)</font>
UTG checks, <font color="#CC3333">Hero bets</font>, UTG calls.

River: (6 BB) 6/images/graemlins/heart.gif <font color="#0000FF">(2 players)</font>
<font color="#CC3333">UTG bets</font>, Hero...?

Hand 2:

SB is another 55/11, seems to have a strategy of getting really aggressive on every hand for a while, then folding everything for an orbit or so.

Preflop: Hero is BB with K/images/graemlins/diamond.gif, K/images/graemlins/spade.gif.
UTG calls, <font color="#666666">3 folds</font>, CO calls, <font color="#666666">1 fold</font>, SB completes, <font color="#CC3333">Hero raises</font>, UTG calls, CO calls, SB calls.

Flop: (8 SB) 6/images/graemlins/heart.gif, 8/images/graemlins/diamond.gif, Q/images/graemlins/diamond.gif <font color="#0000FF">(4 players)</font>
<font color="#CC3333">SB bets</font>, <font color="#CC3333">Hero raises</font>, UTG folds, CO folds, <font color="#CC3333">SB 3-bets</font>, <font color="#CC3333">Hero caps</font>, SB calls.

Turn: (8 BB) J/images/graemlins/diamond.gif <font color="#0000FF">(2 players)</font>
<font color="#CC3333">SB bets</font>, Hero...?

[MrWookie47]

Call both.

[NateDog]

Hand 1: He used a WA/WB against you, and probably didn't know it. The 6 doesn't seem like it completes any hand, and the bet seems to be coming from nowhere. I'll usually call this, and make a note of what he's "making a play" with.

Hand 2: Raise, call a 3 bet, and river a /images/graemlins/diamond.gif

Now that I think about it, posting my best starting hands might not get me the best advice - but they're a good indication of how that downswing went. My great starting hands never seemed to improve.

[ QUOTE ]
Hand 2: Raise, call a 3 bet, and river a /images/graemlins/diamond.gif

[/ QUOTE ]
LOL. At the time I didn't realize it, but villain was just asking for the poker equivalent of being beaten with his own shoe. Wish I could've done it to him.

[testaaja]

I hate hand 1. I have seen that usually these players bet the river when they make something but how can you fold here. I call it.
As for hand 2 I call too.