Bonus Achieved

I wrote on Sunday that I was in danger of claiming the Party reload bonus and still ending up down on the transaction overall. Well, I’m happy to report that in the few hands that I still had to play to qualify for the bonus, I posted a 27 BB profit, which put me back in the black even before applying my $30 bonus. Since I’m playing $0.50/$1.00, it took about 100 hands to get the last 40 or 50 raked hands that I needed. In that time, it seemed like every hand I played managed to hit. It was like Party felt bad for cracking every single high pocket pair that I had a few days ago and decided to make up for it by letting anything I managed to see a flop with connect.

I don’t know if this was me playing well, or everyone else playing badly, or me just getting lucky or some combination of all three, but for some reason I got to see a lot of free flops from the blinds and I got more than my fair share of big blind specials. Couple that with some calling stations, and Mr. ImGonnaRaiseWithMyWeakAceNoMatterWhatTheFlopLooksLike and you’re bound to come out ahead.

A few examples: I have 84o in the small blind and decide to limp in since just about every else was doing it. I flop bottom two pair. I make a bet here and it gets raised which causes me to slow down on the turn and river. I don’t know if that was the plan or not since he flopped top pair jacks with a weak kicker. Anyway, He doesn’t improve and I take down a nice pot that I wouldn’t have even played had anyone been smart enough to raise preflop.

I flopped a straight with 64o out of the big blind when no one felt like raising preflop.

I limped again from the small blind with 93o and made bottom pair with my three. It checked around and another three came on the turn. I paused for a second and then bet, getting only one caller. The river is an ace. I check here because a few hands earlier, with this same player, I had check folded on the river when we had followed a similar betting pattern on earlier streets. I’m pretty sure he’ll assume the ace scares me and that I’ll go away again when he bets. He bets, and I check raise him. He calls and I take down another decent sized pot.

The moral of the story here is that table selection and aggression are key. I found myself at a table with a bunch of passive players who would let me see a bunch of hands for cheap, and then pay me off when I hit them. A little more aggression on their part, and I don’t even see a flop on the above three hands. A little aggression on some of those flops and I don’t make it to the showdown.