Posted by Dr Fro 9:18 AM

The first online poker I ever played was on the first ever online poker site, Planet Poker. Mike Caro endorsed the site. (He may own a piece I don't know, but I do know that his name was all over it at the time). Have you ever noticed that the first product into a brand new market place always seems to go from 100% market share to almost no market share at all (e.g. Betamax, AOL, Apple Mac, etc.)? While Party Poker often has around 90,000 players at a time, Planet Poker might enjoy a whopping 700 at a time. I enjoy the benefits of scale, so I switched to Party Poker. The most obvious benefit is that I can play any game at any stake without any real wait.

I received a very generous bonus offer from Planet Poker recently - deposit $50 and get $100 free. Of course, the usual bonus restrictions apply (play x# hands by such and such date). Their math works out that you earn 50% of the rake you contribute. So if the rake in a hand is $1.00 and their are 5 players in the hand, you get $1 / 5 * 50% = 10 cents. I does not matter if you actually pay the rake (i.e. win the hand) just that you are dealt a hand. This generous bonus combined with a long expiration date (some time in late August) convinced me to give it a go.

I played for a while on Friday and Saturday. There was one hand that I wanted to share. The hand history is not in the format you are used to from Party Poker. The format is tabular and is the same one that Mike Caro uses in his books. See the hand history by clicking below.





The reason I like this hand is that I used several different weapons at my disposal. It is the poker equivalent of the great drive followed up by a perfect short iron followed up by a nice 12-foot birdie putt. I used:

A) position,

B) a tell,

C) knowledge of a player and

D) experience ("poker IQ")

It folded around to me in the button and I found myself with A8. In the button, I love to raise in this situation (A) because you likely get folds but even if you don't, you are in position short-handed, which is great. The small blind re-raised, the BB called and I thought about the fact that the SB had been playing a bit bizarre all day. The BB was a horrible fish that called anything. He had busted out several times, including four hands ago. Based on the length of time it took him to return and the fact that his previous buy-in was for $23.42, I surmised that he completely used up his bankroll and just did a re-deposit from his credit card. He sucked, so I did not flinch at his cold calling two raises. Based on their previous play (C), I surmised a call was in order.

The flop came AK3. Not great, but good. Juanny, the SB made a pot-sized bet. Derrills, the BB, paused for a while and then called. Juanny's bet was so quick, I surmised that he clicked the "Bet Pot" button without even looking at the flop. Ordinarily, this might mean that he had something like a pocket pair. However, since the bet left him with almost nothing (85 cents), I figured that he knew that his money was going in the middle of the table no matter what, so he might as well get it in on the flop and maximize his fold equity. I combined the very quick bet from the BB (B) with the loose play of the BB (C) and decided to call.

The turn brought a blank, and not surprisingly, the SB got in the rest of his chips (85c) and we all called.

The river brought a beautiful 3, pairing the board. (This solved my kicker problems by giving me AA33K.) The BB checked. Even though the BB was a loosy goose, I just couldn't imagine him cold calling 2 raises pre-flop with any hand containing a 3 (other than 33, which surely he would have bet by now). If he had just made a boat, he would have bet his set (or 2 pair) on a previous street. So I figured that worst case scenario was the we both had AA33K. Best case scenario is that I have him beat. Any time I find myself in a situation where I think that I can't be beat but it is quite probable that I have the same hand as my opponent, I go all in (D). If he calls, I am no worse for it (the rake has already been maxed out). If he folds, I just earned an extra half of the pot. No better way to get a fold than to overbet the pot!

I bet, he folded and I won.

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