Playing at Party Poker

I finally made it to Party Poker, land of the many fishes, or so I’ve been told. My first day’s experience however did not quite go as planned. I decided I would try out the $25 buy in NL ring game to see if I could work of my deposit bonus.

Things went poorly from the very beginning. In the third or fourth hand, I’m dealt rockets, and raise the one limper, I’ll call him Captain Suckout, to $2. The flop looks innocent enough, [ Tc 8s 2s ]. He bets $2 and I raise it to $4. Maybe he has trips, but I don’t think so. Maybe he thinks I have overcards and I’ll just go away on that rag flop. The turn is [ 3s ], so now our board looks like this: [ Tc 8s 2s 3s ]. He bets $2 again, and I put him all in for his remaining $2.30. The river is a [7s], and he turns over [Qs 7d] for a Queen high flush. I don’t understand what he was thinking. How could he not possibly think he was beat every single time he called one of my raises? He wasn’t even drawing to the nut flush. He could have hit his flush and still lost.

He started that hand with a little over $10. He would go all in with just about any two cards at any point in any hand regardless of what was on the board, and he just kept hitting his hands. It was absolutely ridiculous. His stack grew all the way up to over $115 just by hitting his two outers on the river over and over again. I’ve never seen so many runner runner straights and flushes in my life.

I lost my initial buy in when I flopped two pair with [Q 6] out of the big blind. The third card on the board was and ace, so I figured one of the two remaining players would have one, and bet for me. I check, and the other player bets $1 into a $2 pot. Captain Suckout raises to $6. I’m thinking that at best he has an ace, most likely he has nothing, so I go all in. They both call. The good captain would have ended up beating me, because his [K T] would hit on both the turn and the river, but I got some satisfaction out of seeing the other guy turn over aces, giving him the set, and taking the captains chips, along with my own.

I’m sort of on tilt here, but I decide to re-buy anyway because good old Captain Suckout still has over $100 and I know his luck can’t stand up forever. Sooner or later, as long as I am patient, I’ll get those chips from him.

At one point, a new player joined our table, and called it a “dream table” after seeing how horribly loose and aggressive people were. It took about fifteen minutes for the Captain to dispose of him.

My second buy in wasn’t going much better than the first. I made a few bad plays and before I knew it I was down to about $10 again. Big Slick helped me double up when a king came on the turn and I was finally able to relax a little.

Shortly after that I’m dealt [ K J ] and I limp in. Five of us see the flop of [ K 4 K ]. The first guy bets $1, and the Captain raises to $6. Just what I have been waiting for. I’m a little worried that he has wired fours, or K4, but knowing him he has ace rag. I go all in knowing I’ll at least get the captain to call. Both blinds drop and both the original bettor and Captain Suckout call. The original bettor is cause for concern, because he could easily have me beat. I didn’t expect a call from him. Fortunately he had [ K 7 ] and I out kicked him. The Captain had [A T]. So I had now doubled my second buy in and was back to even on the night. The Captain left shortly after that hand, and I made one stupid move after his departure where I bet into a flush that I didn’t notice had become possible on the river. If it wasn’t for that I would have finished ahead.

In summary, if this one experience at Party is any indication, the players here are indeed worse than the other sites I have played at. That makes for some horrific bad beats, but should also make for a generally profitable experience. I probably need play a little bit more before I make my final determination.