Ass in the Hole! Ass in the Hole!

Quit or shove while ahead.

PokerStars has got to be the best online poker application on the internet. No flashy graphics, just your cards, an avatar and the table--- simply, simplicity works.

Playing play money tourneys and cash-game tables, It's eating up a lot of my time these days. i am targeting a million chips in a month--- if i do that, my girl will actually allow me to spend Real Money and join minimum buy-in games (around $0.02... Not bad, eh?)

So last night and the night before that (translation: the entire weekend) i was awake until the wee hours of the morning.

A hundred hands later all i remember is this:

i was holding and acting on the button. After a couple of players flat-called the blinds (20-40) i raised to 120.

The small blind called as did the big blind... with the limpers going out. Not bad, i thought. i'm going to milk this shit.

Thinking of milk and more after the rainbow flop of i knew this was the classic chance to just check it and hope they make the bluff.

The small blind (who had 2300+ at this point) checked to the big blind (big stack: 4,000++) who immediately raised to a healthy 900.

i knew he hit something--- top or middle but i KNEW s/he had no trips or even a straight draw so i flat-called his bet even as the small blind got out of the way.

The turn was no help to either of us (i was so positive it was of no help to him)... He checked and (the moron in me as i realized later) raised to around 1200, which he easily called.

Then the river came out. At this point i knew i had him after all it did not pair the board (no trips on this one) and there was no possible straight or flush anyway... So when he went all-in it was instant call from me.

He showed:

As i mucked the rockets clicking and re-clicking the muck button because of embarassment. Got booted out of that tournament (27 players) at 25th place.

After-the-Fact Realizations:
+ Aggressive continuous betting is key. Especially with PokerStars, after all it's just play money... So with any pair on the board (especially top pair) they are going to call anyway. If i went all-in after the flop, i could have taken the loss better. But because i wasn't aggressive enough the big stack just kept on calling and calling. Maybe that all-in would have given me a different result--- and a lease on the tournament life.