Back into the swing

So I've played a few days of online poker since being home and the fields are just so much softer, having randoms from Ukraine and Kazakhstan floating about more often really makes a huge difference. I had a good day today with a 2nd in the $44 turbo for 1.2k before winning the Big $109 on Stars for 13k, the only disappointing part of the day was busting 16th and 12th in the Stars and FTP 100r's respectively. I will be grinding pretty hard over the next few weeks leading up to SCOOP to try and make a lot of money before something changes this current climate. I also promised in my last blog that I would do some hh's from ANZPT Sydney, so here goes.

600/1200/100 - I open 55 to 2600 in the HJ 70k eff. and get flatted by a nitty old Asian guy from the button, he flatted me the hand before and didn't seem too happy about folding to my cbet that hand so I expected him to not let this one go too easily. I cbet 3400 on a Q22cc flop and he raises to 8500, I'm thinking here that he may be bluffing a small % of the time but also guys like this tend to raise their marginal hands to 'find out where they are at' in this spot. I think his range is made up of 66 - JJ and Qx and due to him being a scared live player will not want to put it all in with 1 pair this deep so I raise to 14800 with the plan to bet turn and shove river to fold out most Qx hands, he tanks for a few minutes and calls. The turn is an offsuit 4 and he folds to my bet of 16800.

600/1200/100 - I open ATo to 2600 from the CO 90k deep and get called by both the blinds, 1 of whom is the villain in the first hand and the other guy is a youngish guy with a big stack who has seemed to play pretty terribly so far. The flop comes KQ5r and after the Asian guy checks the young guy donk leads for 2k which I perceive as really week and just trying to bet for the sake of betting, so I raise to 7200 and he calls. I'm putting him on Qx or a weak King here so it really shouldn't be very hard for me to get him to fold those hands plus I also have 7 outs against those hands. The turn brings a 9 and he check calls 11900 which I'm not too concerned about just because I think he folds river so much that I profit a lot more when he calls turn. The river is a 5 and I bet 23800 and he calls rather quickly and slams down Q8o, pretty cool story by him having no plan at all in the hand other than "I has a pair!" but I really should think about an old saying, "don't bluff the fish".

1500/3000/300 - Young guy from WA who has been pretty active and who covers me opens to 6600 from the CO and I 3bet to 16400 with a 150k stack from the SB with JJ, I had been pretty active 3betting 3 times in the last orbit including 1 in which I 3b/f from the SB. He thinks for awhile and 4bets to 33800, I'm very happy with my spot here as with my image he is probably 4b/calling 99+ AQ+ and 4b/f a hell of a lot of the time also, I jam for 150k and he calls with QQ, the board bricks out and my dreams of ANZPT Sydney glory are over in about 55th place.

It's Easter now, so a few days of hard grinding are ahead with the field a bit bigger due to the holiday, hopefully I can get my hands on some of that sweet Easter gold.