Back at PokerRoom

I had a late volleyball game last night.  Since volleyball is an hour away from my house, and work is halfway in between, I stayed late and got in a few hours of poker.  Let me just say that after basically staring at a computer screen for eight hours straight I found it really tough to focus on the poker tables.  It wasn’t that my concentration was off, or that I couldn’t think about poker, it was more that just that my eyes couldn’t focus on the screen any more.  Not that it stopped me from playing; it was just somewhat of a struggle.  

I was planning on playing at FullTilt, where I usually play these days, and where I’m trying to finish off a reload bonus, but their servers were down.  This actually worked out well for me though because the reload bonus period for PokerRoom was about to expire, so I was able to deposit there and start on another bonus.  I’m becoming quite the little bonus whore these days.  I think moving up in limits helps that because I can actually claim the bonuses in the allotted time period.

Anyway, its been a while since I’ve played at PokerRoom, and one of the things that kept getting me was the fact that the avatars are constant.  For the past two or three months I’ve played almost entirely at FullTilt or PokerStars where you can either have your very own unique avatar, or choose one from a pretty decent sized list.  So what was the problem?  Well at those sites, it is considerably easier to recognize players, especially when they are multi-tabling.  You see the same icons, on different tables and you can recognize the players.  On PokerRoom I was playing two tables and there were three other players that were also on both.  But I had a hard time getting a read on them because they looked different on each table.  Player x was the drunk business man on one table and the stripper on the other and I was having a hard time associating the tendencies of one with the other.  Yeah I know they still have the same name, and I have my PokerTracker stats to compare them too, but I still found it difficult.

So besides that the actual poker play went not so well.  I couldn’t do anything right.  It was like the software was programmed to inflict the maximum level of frustration possible in the designated time period.  My big pocket pairs wouldn’t hold up, my big aces would never get a piece of the flop, I’d hit top pair in a big blind special only to lose on the turn or river.  And the jackass calling station who had a VP$IP of over 70 kept winning.  

I’m not usually prone to tilting.  I don’t mind a bad beat or two, knowing that in the long run I’ll come out ahead in situations.  And I can live with losing sessions, as long as I’m playing well.  What usually gets me though is losing a number of hands that I feel I should have won after I’m already down a lot.  The following sequence of hands put me over the edge.  First I have big slick and raise it up, getting one caller.  The luckbox calling stating I mentioned earlier.  Flop is rags, ten high.  He checks, I bet, he calls.  Turn is another rag.  Check, bet, call.  River doesn’t help me either.  He checks and I also check.  He has a wired eights.  Next hand, I have wired sevens, and call.  Luckbox is in the BB and is the only one to join me for the flop.  Its rags but they don’t help me.  He checks, I bet, he calls.  Turn, same thing, Check, Bet, Call.  River is an ace, and we both check.  Sound familiar?  This time he has A6o.  The very next hand I get QQ and think to myself finally, a chance to win some chips back.  The guy before me raises, I three bet and he caps.  Excellent.  I just hope he doesn’t have kings or aces.  Flop is king high and we end up capping it again.  Hmmm.  I don’t like where this is going.  The turn and river don’t help me, and I just call his bets and he shows AK.   Losing any one of those three hands would have been fine on their own, but losing all three in a row, when I was already down a bunch didn’t make me a happy camper.  What really gets to me is getting beaten with hands that I just lost with a minute ago.  At least I was doing ok on the other table.

Speaking of the other table, just as I was about to call it a night, I found myself with a beautiful pair of aces under the gun.  The betting is capped three ways pre-flop.  The flop is queen high and I lead out, and get immediately raised.  The other guy drops and we cap the betting again.  Nothing on the turn and when I bet he raises again.  At this point I figure he has QQ and just call.  River doesn’t help but again I bet.  Even though I’m pretty sure he has QQ, its also reasonable that he has AQ, or KK and I always seem to let aggressive betting scare me into checking the river when I have the best hand.  Of course he does have the queens, and I decide I should probably stop playing now before I do some serious damage to my laptop.

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In other news, our volleyball team won its first game last night.  We still lost the match, but at least we got rid of that goose egg on the standings.  Never mind the fact that they only had four players and that we should have easily won all three games.  

I somehow managed to hurt my knee.  It felt fine while we were playing, but by the time I got home it stiffened up and I couldn’t bend it or put much weight on it.  It feels a lot better today as long as I don’t have to go up or down any stairs.  I’m going to have to get some of those stupid looking volleyball knee pads.  

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Oh, and I don’t know if anyone cares, but PokerRoom has a magazine that they put out.  It’s nothing great, but as far as I know it’s free so who am I to complain?   I think if you log into your account on their website and go to the personal settings tab of your account page there is an option to have them send you the magazine.  Although maybe the option to receive the magazine is selected by default because I certainly never signed up for it and I get it.