Here I am with my first contribution to this blog. Today I played a rather short session of online poker, about 90 minutes on Titan Poker. You can recognize me there under the name of ‘Kaplanos26′. Of course this is a referral to one of my heroes, Gabe Kaplan . That’s mainly a consequence of his performances as commentator of the notorious poker show ‘High Stakes Poker’, rather than his achievements as a singer (search for “Up your nose with a rubber hose” on the internet ^^).

I chose to start with a little .05/.10 $ cashgame so I can hopefully build up a decent bankroll the next weeks. I bought in for the maximum amount of 10 $ so i was deepstack and could play a relatively high percentage of hands. Most of the time, folding is still the only option though. As time went by, I happened to end up status quo as a lucky flop compensated for a tough beat.

First I limped in middle position with Kd9d and flopped the king high flush in a four-way pot. Everybody checked the flop and on the turn (a non-pairing black card) somebody bet 1/2 the pot and I was his only caller. He fired again after another blank on the river an I reraised him all-in for his last 15 big blinds and he called with the only hand that could beat me: the ace-high flush. Later on I was on the big blind with J2 offsuit and the small blind was the only caller. The flop had another two jacks on it, SB betted the minimum and I called. The turn completed the rainbow on the board with another low card and the SB betted 1/2 the pot and I decided to just call again with my 2 kicker. With no straights or flushes out there the SB went all-in on the river for hist last 25 big blinds and I called, committed as I was. He had pocket rockets and I had a good time.

The last hand to discuss today is the one where I made a ‘queen of diamonds-decision’ . I pasted the history of the hand below:

So i limped on the button with a Q9 offsuit. Important to know is that I had a good read on my opponent on the small blind at that moment. From his earlier plays I knew he was a very tight aggressive player, pre-flop as well as postflop. The person on the big blind made a lot of check-raises in early position before. That was the reason I checked my gutshot and two overs in last position to get a free card. When the SB betted the turn, I knew he wouldn’t have an 8 (he would have betted that on the flop) or a 5 (he would have betted far more in early position with possible straight- and flushdraws out there). I missed my overs and gutshot on the river but realized there were a lot of cards to represent that were better than his marginal hand (possibly a 7), so I raised him out of the pot. Standard play for advanced players, but an important move for beginners.