Busy Week

My journalism studies started this week. The first week most of the time was spent getting to know your fellow students. It's been a lot of fun and I've been partying hard. There are about 60 new journalism students this year. They seem like a nice group of people. There are some pretty nice girls too. Seems like there is mutual interest between a cute blonde and myself. More updates on that later hopefully. ;-)

Naturally there haven't been much time for poker, but I have done very well the few times I was able to play. Yesterday I played the $100 HU tournament again. This time I was more successful as I made it into the "sweet sixteen" and cashed for $400. I obviously ran quite well, but I never felt threatened in any way in the first 5 rounds. In the round where I was finally knocked out I had some unfortunate situations occur, and I don't think many players could have done much good with the cards I was dealt. I'm up $1,200 in the cash games this week from more or less three short sessions. I have played exclusively 1/2, but my bankroll is quickly approaching $10k, so I will probably make 2/4 my regular game starting in September. Right now I'm sitting on the fence as to whether or not I'm going to play the 750k guaranteed on Full Tilt that starts in 20 minutes. I probably will.

I have to brag about a cool hand I played today. It's 6-handed as usual, and I raise KQo UTG to $7. That's a completely standard raise for me. Although it's one of the worse hands I will raise UTG, I generally think it's and underestimated hand in today's 6-max games. The games play so aggressively that most players are almost always 3-betting the hands that have you dominated. Thus it's possible to play top pair pretty aggressively with KQ in a lot of spots. In fact it's one of my most profitable hands. Anyway, I get called by the CO, who seems to be fishy, and by the BB, who seems solid. The flop comes T52 two hearts and I decide to lead for $16 into $22. Even though I had been rather active at the table, I reckoned my bet should get a lot of respect. It's harder for the CO to float me light with one player behind him, and the BB is usually going to have some sort of speculative hand that he is trying to hit a flop with. I expected him to play fit or fold. The CO ended up calling and the BB folded. The turn came an offsuit ace, which is obviously a good barrel-card for me. I bet $38 into $54, expecting to get a fold most of the time. I don't think it's necessary to bet any bigger. But I got called, and the river was another offsuit ace. So now I was imagining four scenarios. He either has a) the ace high flush draw that just caught an ace b) a ten that refuses to fold c) a naked flush draw or d) AK/AQ. I dismissed d) as unlikely, because he re-raises those hands preflop a lot and the aces on the board as well as the KQ in my hand makes it even more unlikely. Besides, it would have been a daring call on the flop with a player left to act. So I came up with what I thought was the optimal play, which was to check and call a bet. I didn't think he was capable of valuebetting anything less than an ace. So if he bets when I check on the river he either has Ax of hearts or two other random hearts, the latter being more likely. He bet $65, I insta-called, he showed 94 of hearts and I shipped the $255 pot with my king high.