Cash Game: Hard Rock Hotel April 7th 4:30 PM-6:00 PM

After busting out of the tournament, I headed to Hard Rock to get some hours in. We started 4 handed in a new game with this guy who I had played with every time and 2 female players. I folded for a while and the game slowly started to fill.

We were 6 handed and there were a few limpers and I found A6ss on the button and made it $12. The lady who limped UTG minraised to $22 and I immediately thought monster (I later found out that she plays very very badly but I assumed she was pretty decent at this point). I called though because it was a minraise and the flop came QsTx5s giving me a FL draw. She bet out $15 and I called. The turn came a 6 and she checked and I checked behind. The river came a 7 and she bet out $15 again and I called because she has AK here every once in a while and she showed 77 for a rivered set (didn’t need it though) and I dug myself into an early hole. I bought in for $55 more so I was in for $255.

There was a normal straddle and if folded to me in the SB and I found ATss and made it $16. The SB folded and the straddle called. The flop came J95 and I bet out $21 and he called. The turn came a 4 and I check/folded to his $35 bet. I was down to $170 or so and I really had a blow up of a pot after this.

The guy who I had played with every time was sitting to my left and he had a good sense of how I was playing and me with him. I think he respected my game and raises. I had actually played a ton of pots with him in previous sessions (if you look above about 1/3-1/2 of the small pots were against him) but most of them never got that far in the hand or that big of pots, either I would c-bet and win or he would call my c-bet and I would check fold to his turn bet. This created the dynamic I tried to use in this pot. I raised it to $12 with 1 limper in MP with ATdd and the guy on my left called and so did the limper. The flop came 955 and I c-bet $21, like I usually do. The guy on my left called and the limper folded. The turn came a 4 and this is where it gets dicey. I figured that since I have check/folded to his turn bets 100% of the time he has called my flop bets, I thought that if I lead out here, he would make me for a big pair and be able to easily lay down a 9 or a small pair which he might be lingering with so I bet out $45. However, when making this bet, there were 2 things I did not consider: 1)he only had about $80 chips to start the hand and 2) because of this, the strength of this starting hand is probably greater than usual when calling a raise from someone who c-bets often and he has few implied odds against even if he does hit. If I would have been paying attention to his stack size, this hand would have played out entirely differently. Instead, I bet $45 and he instantly moved all in for like $25 more and I decided that I had to call just incase he did have a 9 and I had 6 outs. Instead, I called and he showed KK (I probably still would have called if I knew he had this) and the river blanked and I was down a bunch.

I rebought for $200 more and I was in for $455 or so. I was sitting with around $240-$245 at the table after this. I tightened up after this. I raised a button straddle and a 2 limpers from the cutoff with QQ and everyone folded. Later, I raised the button straddle and 1 limper from the cutoff to $21 with ATo and everyone folded. These were the only other pots I played, as the table got much worse to sit at as good players kept filling the open seats. There was little point in me to play as the table was hard and I was stuck a little so I decided to leave a little later, with $269 in chips, a net loss of $186 for the day. This was a tough session as I had worked so hard to cut into my cash game debt in previous sessions but I lost a bunch back today. I know that I will get back in the positive for cash games though and I hope that it will be soon.