My ship barely got out of the harbor …

My ship barely got out of the harbor yesterday. Doing some routine things like taking my wife for a doctor’s visit turned into an all day affair. (She is much better today, thank you).

When the day was about done, I pulled back up to the docks and settled down for a simple game of Limit Hold ‘Em at AbsolutePoker. Prior to playing I had just finished reading a review suggested by one of the twitter poker people that I follow. The article  suggested that some of the players at the lower stakes played less than optimal, meaning I should be able to beat them.

Of course when you play on a table with loose and non-aggressive players, you also can suffer some high losses as well. These type of players won’t fold if there is even the slightest chance that their hand will win once they see the river. They will not bet, but will call right up until the last card. If they hit, you can count on a raise or a re-raise from them. Even if they don’t make their hand they might call a bet on the end anyway, in the hopes that you really did not have a hand either. They will play any two suited cards; an Ace with any kicker, suited or unsuited. They may even play AK with out hitting anything and bet it up right up to the river hoping that you fold or that you have a weaker hand than AK.

So even though I played in less than 17% of the hands overall and only played my best hands, I had wide swings in the size of my stack during the game. At one point I had lost over 65% of my starting stack, being rivered when I had the best hand right up to seeing the last card. I had also increased my stack to more than 65% of the starting amount as well, but I ended up almost even after 2 1/2 hours of play.

Would I play there again? Against these types of opponents? ABsolute-ly!

Where do you chose to play? What type of players do you like to play against? Where do you earn the most profit in your play?