Social climbing

Yesterday I experienced one of those rare dream sessions where I happened to be on the right side of variance. Top pair medium kicker holding up, a gutshot on the river. I was beside myself as I made my way to the cashier, clutching a stack of reds in each hand. And I have small hands.

Two hours later I was walking out of Wal-Mart, at long last the proud owner of a pot to piss in.

Limping with aces

lightning36 has a good post about limping with aces. I agree with him that there are definitely situations that warrant such a move.

I only play live cash games and I don't subscribe to any predefined set of rules, such as only limping a certain percentage of the time. On the extremely rare occasions that I actually do get dealt AA (last AA sighting was in the summer of '08), my aim is to maximize my expected profit (EV) from the hand. This will be dependent on, inter alia, my position with respect to both the button and other players, relative stack sizes, my image, game flow, meta game considerations, and other players' strengths and weaknesses.

So in some cases, maximizing EV will be equivalent to getting in as much money into the pre-flop pot as possible, though I'd prefer a lid on the number of opponents. Depending on the circumstances, this may entail either limping or raising. In other cases, maximizing EV may be more post-flop oriented, such as trying to trap another big stack, and, once again, limping or raising will be situation-dependent.

My new friend

As I inch towards total insolvency, I am really hoping for a speedy resolution to the FTP saga. 15% unemployment in Las Vegas certainly doesn't help either. Ever the optimist, I decided to adopt a dog from a local shelter last week. She's a great companion - here we are downtown :

GBT - FTP - FUD

The rollercoaster ride continues. It wasn't long ago (February 2) that legal and gaming industry consultant Wendeen Eolis thought the Group Bernard Tapie (GBT) - Full Tilt Poker (FTP) deal was in peril. This morning, after speaking to GBT counsel Behn Dayanim, she expressed renewed optimism.