Nice Cash Game Session

I put in a 5-hour cash game session today at Rio, which was my first cash session since I've been out here. I have been avoiding cash games intentionally, focusing my energy on the tournaments instead, but decided that I needed a change of pace to get excited about poker.

I sat in a 10/20 NL game and bought in for 4k, which was about average at the table. It was definitely nice to be sitting with a deep stack for a change, 200 big blinds to work with. I played pretty tight my first two hours, as I eased into the game, but opened up my game as I felt out the table (and readjusted to cash game play). There were three players who were pretty weak at the table (two of which were on my right), and I made a point of trying to play as many pots with them as possible (especially when in position). The game was particularly soft, because the highest stakes cash game pros were playing 100/200 NL with an average buy-in of over 50k.

I ended up booking a nice win of $3,800 during the session. The largest and most interesting hand occurred after I had been playing for about 3 hours. I was up to about $4,800 and one of the weaker players, two to my right, was bleeding chips from his $2,500 stack.

He open raised to $70 from the cutoff, the button called, and I looked down at QdJd in the small blind. In a tournament, QJ is an auto-fold in most situations, but in a deep stacked cash game, it can be a nice speculative hand worth playing in a multi-way raised pot. I called and the big blind called and we took the flop 4-handed. The flop came down Ah, 10h, 8d, giving me a double bellybuster straight draw to the nuts (either a 9 or K would give me the nut straight) and a backdoor flush draw. The action checked around to the preflop raiser who made it $200 to go. I thought that he likely had a big ace and would likely pay me off if I hit my draw. I called and we went to the turn heads up. The turn was the perfect card, the Kd, giving me the nuts and a redraw. This card looked harmless enough to my opponent (not a heart), and if he had a big ace like AK, AQ or AJ, it actually would have improved his hand. I checked, knowing that my opponent would do the work for me. He led for 550 (leaving himself another $1,700 behind), and I decided to smooth call once again, wanting him to think I was on a heart draw. I knew that as long as the river was not a heart, he would almost definitely fire again on the river, commiting his stack to the pot. The river was the 2s and I checked again using all of my acting abilities to feign that I had missed my draw. My opponent bet $1,100 on the river and I check raised him all-in. He took a good two minutes, but eventually made a crying call for his last $600 and I quickly flipped up the nuts. He mucked face down, but later claimed that he had AA (which is possible, but I think he had something more like AQ).

It definitely feels good to book a win (I had almost forgotten what it feels like), and I am excited to get back to the tourneys tomorrow at noon. There is another $1,500 NL Hold'em event tomorrow, which means a short 3k starting stack (first two levels are key), and lots and lots of bad players (hopefully anyways).