It's a little-known secret that you can still play online poker in the United States. A couple of months ago, I deposited $50 into an account and I started to play. The site is terrible; traffic is poor; the game selection is poor; and the software is terrible. But, it's poker and I can play in my pajamas at stakes as low as $0.02/$0.05.
And by "started to play", I mean that I started to play horribly. My bankroll bounced around $50 for a couple of weeks, then I hit a bad spot (i.e., bad luck and bad play) until my account literally had less than $2 in it.
At that point, I decided to focus and to start playing better. Specifically, that meant single-tabling and sticking to my best game (short-handed limit hold'em; $0.05/$0.10 stakes!). This was very successful and I started rebuilding my stack. I got it up over $20 when I somehow managed to clear enough points to get my deposit bonus, which was worth $40. So, suddenly, I was flush with cash and I moved up stakes to as high as $0.25/$0.50. I ran my account up to $90 or so, before my bad habits came back (playing no limit hold'em, pot limit Omaha, and multi-tabling) and I slid back down to $50.
In the past week, though, I have re-focused, dropped stakes, and dropped the bad habits... and my stack climbed up to about $60 or so. And then last night happened.
I initially stuck to my game plan of play limit hold'em and won about $4. I used that as an excuse to buy-in to a single table of pot limit Omaha because my theory is that I should be able to beat this game because I am a smarter/better poker player than most and that I simply need to learn the game. I am also thinking that I have been playing too loose and too passive; my plan was to play tighter and more aggressive, especially when I had position.
Anyway, I bought in for $2.50 and lost a bunch of small pots before I pushed all-in with two-pair and got called by a guy with a single pair, no draw. That pushed me north of $3.50. Next, I got involved in a HUGE pot in which the flop was something like K 5 4 (rainbow) and I held 6 7 8 9. There was a pot-sized bet on the flop which was called by three people (I was one of the callers). The turn was 3 (completing the rainbow) and the original bettor shoved (he held 4 4 x x) and got called by me and by the person to my left (he held 6 7 x x). The river was an 8 and I took down the huge pot ("huge" = $8, which is actually > 3 buy-ins, so yeah... it's technically "big").
A few hands later, I was in the big blind when everyone folded to the small blind (who was deep-stacked with $8) who completed and then re-raised me when I raised him with As Ac 2s 2c. I have been having horrible luck lately with coin flips, so I decided to simply call. The flop came A 7 7 and the small blind bet out and I min-raised and he called. The turn was an 8 and he bet the pot and I shoved and he insta-called, revealing x x 8 8. With my luck, I was genuinely expecting an 8 on the river, but I faded the one-outer and survived. In the end, I ran my $2.50 to more than $16 in about 30 minutes simply by getting lucky and by playing correctly.
So, yeah, I think that I should play pot limit Omaha a bit more (as long as I play well).
