Goddammit Anyways - A Visa Virtual Giftcard Story

Being as how I'm in the playing mood lately, I figured I'd try to throw a hundo online and mess around a little bit. I didn't know what I was planning on playing, probably just small $10 private tournies or some small games on FT or somethin. I didn't really care, honestly. I just wanted to play and I wanted to play right then.

Last time I threw money online, since my debit card never worked and since mostly all the hassle-free sites stopped serving the US, I decided to try the Visa giftcards. I tried using the ones they offered online, a virtual giftcard, instead of going to a store to physically purchase one. The site had said that the Vcards didn't work at online gambling venues, but there were various
reports that they did in fact work at Full Tilt and Poker Stars. I loaded one up, and sure enough it worked.

I tried doin that yesterday and it appears that that form of payment processing no longer works. Now, I'm stuck with a hunred bucks on a virtual giftcard that I can't cancel, and that I'd have to pay a service fee for if I wanted to get a physical Visa giftcard in exchange for it.

This isn't really a huge beat for me since I enjoy buying stuff from online anyways, but what I really wanted to do was play a little bit, and now I can't even do that without jumpin across a bunch of e-bridges to get to where I wanna be. Thanks a lot you goddamn UIGEA.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Anyways, I was going to make this post mainly about hand reviews, but I honestly haven't played in a while to have anything review worthy. I have a couple from the $1/3NL game at Caesar's, but other than that I now realize that there's not been enough play to really post much up here.

In any case, here's a couple hands.

Game is the $1/3NL at Caesar's. The games are soooo soft and the players are meh. Player in the 4-seat is the only decent player at the table and he's sitting on around $800 and growing. Everyone else seems to be very fishy and probably what one would expect at a $1/3 table. The main players here are gonna be:

1-seat - me
2-seat - Very loose and a huge non-believer. Overplayed all of his hands and chased out of his mind. Bought in for the full $500 and down to about $300.
5-seat - Very quiet, mellow player. He didn't say a word except for "nice hand" and seemed to be playing tight-ish preflop and made a lot of loose calls postflop.
9-seat - New to the table. I saw him call down draws with no odds as well as middle pair/underpair a couple times to the river. I also saw him call ridiculousness to the turn and river and bet when he hit. Bought in for $500, sitting on around $700.

At this point I had bought in for $100 and coming up on two hours I was up to around $380. I had been playing pretty solid, taking down a lot of pots with no showdown, and at the same time showing down only winners to the river.

Button is on the 4-seat and it folds to the 9-seat who limps for $3. I sense folds back around to the blinds so I pop it to my regular $10 with the Kc3c (pinch pinch, insert krablar dance here). Everyone folds back around to the 9-seat who calls off the $7 more.

Flop: Qd-Jh-5h.

9-seat checks and I fire out with a cbet, hoping to take it down with my winning image. The $20 gets called and we head to the turn.

Turn: Ks

9-seat checks again and now I gotta figure his range here. I don't put him on a made hand just yet. K-10 is possible, but I figure if he hits the King with the straight draw on the turn he's betting at me. I put him on either the Jack or the heart draw. I bet out $60 behind him and he thinks for a second and calls. Watching him play up to this point, he called pretty quickly with his draws and hesitatingly with his weaker pairs. At this point I put him on the Jack because of the pause.

River: 10x

The heart misses and he checks to me again. I think this may actually be a good card for me, as my image is tight and the Ace-out might make him lay down a better hand should he have one. At this point I'd rather him fold obv, but I'm ok with my read if he calls. I cut down a hundred stack and he thinks for a minute...and then minraises another $100.

FUOIWU(*)@$U@)(%IJOOSF()%@%. Dammit...I hem and haw for a second to showboat, even though I'm not puttin another dollar into this pot. I'm pretty pissed at myself for gettin into this situation in the first place, but for the first part of the hand I felt like I had the right line.

I let it go and he shows me A-7 offsuit for the rivered straight. I knew he was a huuuge moron, but didn't think it out to that extent. He scooped the pot and I was visibly pissed at the calldown. At that point I just dumped off a tiny bit more than half my stack that I had just spent an hour and half building, and was pretty stunned at how horrible the $1/2NL is.

I couldn't figure out how to really feel after that one. I read him as weak and played my hand accordingly, although it was a crap hand to get in with anyways. I knew he was a caller, so whether or not I should've tangled is definitely questionable. But there was multiple ways that I thought I could've won that hand and it definitely didn't work out.

About two hands later I get the rest of my stack in against 5-seat with AsQs on a 8-9-10-J board. I bet the flop of 8-9-10 and he called. The Jack hit and we got it all in. I knew before his cards were even turned over that he had KQ.

gg me, I go for the reload


I had a pretty big hand that got me back in the black after the reload, which I'll post up tomorrow. I know it has a lot to do with personal reads, and it's difficult to judge a live hand vs. an online hand, but let me know what you think about that K3 hand. There'll be more tomorrow.