Frustrated Lately

I have been very frustrated with Poker lately if you have not guessed. It is one of those things where anything that can go wrong usually does. I did cap the night off with a fun hand though.. before Pokerstars decided to drop my connection for the second time.. I was having serious problems with them last night.. Other sites too.. I wonder if George was setting up traces and screwed up or something..

So anyway.. I was in the hole for a few bucks and getting frustrated when I saw 23o. Woo hoo! I call a raise in MP and the flop comes all low cards. The initial raiser continuation bets and I cold call. He then leads out a weak $8 into a $16 pot. I instantly raise him $20. Why? I have no hand. My read is that he has AK. He cold calls my raise which further confirms I am either getting trapped or he has overs. The river is a nice Jack. Making the board all kinds of straight possabilities. SO how can I win this hand? My 3 high sucks right? I stay with my read that he is weak and push my remaining $54 into the pot. He folds like a girl getting gut punched by the PokerChamp. I instantly show.

Now that hand proves nothing except one thing that I would have exploited if the game continued on. After that I could not get anyone to fold anything. I got paid off on all my value bets. I tightened WAYYY up and decided to only play when I had monster hands.. and it worked. Nobody wanted to be shown the 23o and feel like a pussy. Everyone was out to get me. Unfortionatly I could only exploit this for a little while because Pokerstars connection died. However it does show the power of 72o (or in this case 23o) and the ability to manipulate the emotions of a table to your advantage. Fluxer playing small cards and busting big Aces is another example. Manipulation is very important. Use it to your advantage and get paid.

One other interesting thing I heard this weekend was while watching "Live at the Bike". Our own Weak Player was on the show and I will refrain from commenting on his play until I myself try a 10/20 NL game. However.. One of the commentators said "None of these guys is going broke with TP". It is a theme you hear alot if you have been playing poker for a long time. Top Pair is a suck hand. I know it seems so good when your playing the WWDN or the MOOK and people are going all in with K4o, TP four kicker. I am not sure exactly where that strategy plays in a 50$ NL cash game because your opponents are willing to push with crap. It is something to think about before hitting that insta-call to your opponents all-in though.

Tonight I beleive Hoyazo will be running his Mondays With Hoyathon again. That is a sweet game. Decent payout too with the 20$ buyin. I will play that tonight and probably some more cash game. Since my Bankroll is declining instead of ascending I am going to focus more on cash games and SNGs, and play the usual fun Hoyazo, WWDN, Mook, and WWDN:Not.