Stay off the roads in NYC

The Ms. is now a driver. Well it's just her permit but it's one further step in the wrong direction =). I also get to be the one to teacher her how to drive. That probably a good thing though, because her dad is a european driver, and well, it's not like the BQE needs another person speeding, cutting across two lanes without signaling, and tailgating. At least I signal. I also had the joy of getting into my first moving accident today. Some tiny spanish woman rear-ended us and apparently the only english she knew was "I'm sorry." Thankfully, unlike my car which is a 2006 Civic hybrid in which the bumper shatters when hit by a pebble, her parent's car is a 1994 Ford Contour, and the bumper already had plenty of wear on it. It looked like there was no damage to either car, so I just gave her a dirty look and drove off.

As far as poker goes, I had an up and down weekend, eventually ending at where I was when I made my last entry. Saturday I had a cool deck playing with $90 buy-in (it seems that buy-in amount doesn't agree with me) and dropped about $200. Sunday the cool deck continued, and was down about another $150 until I hit a set followed by aces, doubled up on both, hit a few more hands until I was up about 70 on the session, until I had this hand, which cause me to give back about $40 of that:

Full Tilt Poker Game #2697784202: Table Jasper Bluff - $0.50/$1 - No Limit Hold'em - 1:19:21 ET - 2007/06/18
Seat 1: Big Blind ($162.20)
Seat 3: Jaturongkabaht ($76)
Seat 4: Villain ($110.75)
Seat 5: Blank ($135.40)
Seat 6: Blank ($117.35)
Seat 7: Blank ($51.10)
Seat 9: Blank ($36.25)
Blank posts the small blind of $0.50
Blank posts the big blind of $1
The button is in seat #8
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Jaturongkabaht [Jc Js]
Jaturongkabaht raises to $4
Villain calls $4
Blank folds
Blank folds
Blank folds
Blank folds
Big Blind calls $3
*** FLOP *** [Ts 3c 5d]
Big Blind checks
Jaturongkabaht bets $9
Villain raises to $18
Big Blind folds
Jaturongkabaht has 15 seconds left to act
Jaturongkabaht raises to $40
Villain raises to $62
Jaturongkabaht has 15 seconds left to act
Jaturongkabaht has requested TIME
Jaturongkabaht: bleh, i guess you got me
Jaturongkabaht folds
Uncalled bet of $22 returned to Villain
Villain mucks
Villain wins the pot ($89.50)
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $92.50 | Rake $3
Board: [Ts 3c 5d]
Seat 3: Jaturongkabaht folded on the Flop
Seat 4: Villain collected ($89.50), mucked

This was a really odd hand. First of all, anytime min-raises come into the mix the hand enters some odd territory. At this level, people seem to be concerned that raising too large will scare people anyway from their big hands, so they think they will be clever and min-bet. This should have been red flag number 1. Also, the villain is someone who I see pretty regularly at the tables, probably knows most of the time I will follow up on my PF raises on ragged flops, so he may have had me on something like AK. However, I also know he is the type who doesn't really focus on playing well per se, but he does focus on only putting in a large amount of chips in the middle with the nuts or near nuts. So I felt that I am probably calling too wide against this player on a turn bet (or more likely check-raising all-in), so I made a small re-raise to let him know that I wasn't just c-betting. When he four bet me, I knew he had a set and so I folded. I had a very long discussion with Riddim about this hand, and we both agreed the optimal play here was to just call the min-raise and go from there, but I think as it played, my played saved me money. I forced him to announce his hand at a point where I would fold. Had I waited, I would have been stacked. My whole point to the argument is that my game is not as optimal as I'd like it to be, so sometimes the optimal play will cause me to make a large mistake later, and it is necessary to make a smaller mistake early to cover-up those flaws.

My Monday session went much better than that. A few big hands, here and there over a three hour session and I ended up about $170 on the session, or exactly where I left off on Friday. In either case, I'd late and I have work tomorrow. New goal for the week, add another $300 to the BR by Sunday night.