Dry Runs

Sometimes the cards don't come. My last few orbits have been almost entirely J2s, 54, T6, Q2o, A3, K4o, etc. Push too hard with those hands and you'll lose it all. Don't play and you'll give up your blinds to guys betting Q6 from early position. It's a dilemma. I've had one flopped set (paid off) and one pocket aces (cracked by AQ, which is damn rare when you think about it).

I'm firm on this, though, even 6 handed I am not opening with K4o. On the button or in the blinds I might raise, only because I know Kxo will win slightly more than 50% of the time against a random hand.

I'm stuck in a parallel world with the guy to my left - our stacks are moving exactly in unison up and down. We were both around 24, now both around 15, and neither can pull away. We chip away at each other a little but it's a zero-sum game. The new players are short-stacked and not giving much away.

Sometimes your timing and feel is off just a bit. I held T9o and was heads up with a player who probably held an ace. The board was something like AT2. I like to mix up the call/raise/fold with middle pair; you have at least 5 outs so it's sometimes worth an investment, especially against a very maniacal opponent who will pay you off. But I folded here, and the next card was a ten, of course. Then when I made the call, it missed (as it usually will). Hard to tell where the feel comes from, especially online.

OK, I've been deal 32o twice in the last 10 minutes; it's just not my afternoon. I'm trying to get even and after that, forget it.

I can really see the value of the dead-middle hands like 86s in a raised pot. The raise and calls indicate a lot of high cards, meaning the deck may flop more middle stuff. While suited connectors are nice, suited one-gaps are even better because people aren't as good as they think at reading the board. So a flop of K97 looks really safe to someone holding AK, even though they may be up against two pair, an open-ender or a flush draw.