Well,

I decided to clean up my laptop friday night, I went in the other room to use the phone, came back and the laptop was off. I thought that was a bit strange, perhaps overheated.

Anyway, tried to turn it on and it said the hal.dll was missing or corrupt, please replace it blah blah blah. I couldn't get into my computer at all. In short, I solved it, I knew that national diploma in computing and quarter of a 1st year degree in computer science would do me good.

Anyway, I wish it had stayed broke because I played 10/20 stud and got royally creamed for a decent amount. It wasn't bad play till the end, but just not being able to make a 2nd pair, straight v flush for a nice pot and so on.

I got back in today from setting up my friends rakeback accounts and played for 9 hours straight. Most of the time I was 4 tabling, 3 of them being 5/10 stud. The other table was either a MTT, Omaha or Holdem.

I finished 3rd in the $7,500 VIP Platinum freeroll for $660 odd which was nice.

Busted in the AWF $3k GTD with KK v Q8s (monster)

Finished 11th in some 2.5k GTD, which is what I will talk about.

So I ended up making a great move with AJ to double up and become top 3 stack with 11 left. Next hand I get ATs and someone min raises. I decide to reraise big and he calls. flop comes KT*, he checks, I bet the pot and he calls, Turn J.

I just put him all in now because he doesnt have much left, he flips over QJ to cripple me. Well, that was short lived. I went out 11th soon after.

The stud games went very well today. I decided after last night to stay away from the 10/20 game for two reasons;

1) I didn't fancy going on another downswing at those stakes right now
2) The game wasn't particuarly that good and I felt I could do better 3 tabling 5/10

As I said, the games went very well for me today and I was playing very well. One of the big downfalls that my opponents seem to have is their very timid play, especially shorthanded. Someone called me down with Aces up against my un co-ordinated board. I obviously had two pair and he called down on 5.

It's good for me, but he could have got himself an extra bet, because his aces were buried and I wasn't putting him on that sort of a hand. I wouldn't have 3-bet or folded, but I would have defintly called down.

Another problem they seem to have is that I am a very aggressive player. They are quite happy to call my raise on 3rd when they are bring in, call 4th, then fold 5th pretty much all the time. I am just going to carry on betting regardless of my hand till I am told otherwise, unless it looks a bit fishy.

If I was them I would be re-raising on 3rd with a lot of marginal hands, or even on a complete bluff on 5th but they don't seem to be wanting to do that.

I found myself in a couple of situations today and I do not know the answer to my questions. I am going to type them up here so I remember them for tomorrow when I see my friend.

I know the answer to a few, but I thought if I type up a few scenarios then when I get the answers, it will help any of you who are looking into stud.

Here they are;

In all these scenarios all your cards are clean.

1) You have split 6's with a Q kicker. An A up open raises in EP and there are a few callers showing very little. Do you Fold or Call?

2) Same scenario as above except the A up is in MP. Do you fold or all?

3) Same scenario as 1) except it's folded round to you. Do you fold or call?

4) same scenario as 2) except it's folded round to you. Do you fold or call?

5) same as scenario 1) except your kicker is an 8. Do you fold or call?

6) same as scenario 2) except your kicker is an 8. Do you fold or call?

As you can tell I am not too sure what the best course of action is with these small/mid pairs when there has been a raise. I suppose we can start bringing in player dependant blah blah blah in this situation, but for arguments sake we will say he is an unknown.

I will let my two readers of this blog think about it and maybe they can post a reply. If not then I will probably give my answers tomorrow and my friends in a day or two.

Right, so that's about it for tonight, except for the fact I must have earnt shitloads in rakeback tonight!

Night.