A Fine Line

What a gambly couple of days.

I started out Friday with an experiment on the Rampage technique. It's a little bit random, but I figured I wanted to give it a try to get some short-stack practice and hopefully make some easy money at levels I wouldn't normally play.

I started out with $200 at 5/10 NL, doubled, and then took that $400 to 10/20 NL. Doubled there on a resteal attempt from the big blind with KTs, got called by AJo and hit a T. So that was a nice $600 in about 45 minutes.

Then I hit up some blackjack bonuses, at BellaVegas Casino, Nine.com, Cinema Casino and River Belle Casino. I treated BellaVegas like a sticky bonus, tripling my $250 deposit to $750 on blackjack, but then got whittled down to $75 on American Roulette because it's one of the few games that clears the workthru requirement at 100 percent value. Stupidly, I misunderstood the vaguely worded fine print and didn't realize my play wouldn't count until the $250 bonus amount was credited to my account 24 hours later. I tried to treat it like a sticky once again the next day, but quickly busted.

On Nine.com, the deal was that you get $200 on a $200 deposit. If I had been smart, I would have cashed out as soon as the bonus amount expired, but I didn't realize that was allowed. I ended up profiting $15 after I burned my bonus down close to my original buyin.

Details on these bonuses and many more can be found on scurvy's list of casinos he's been playing recently.

Then on to real poker. I hit a slide by running KK into AA preflop twice, then receiving a couple of standard bad beats: flush draws that called all-in bets on the turn and hit, second-pairs that call all-in bets on the turn and hit a gutshot straight on the river.

Finally, things turned around. I started playing some of the most varied and accurate poker I've played in a long time. I don't know what to call it except Power Poker. My reads were spot on, my bluffs were effective, my draws with implied odds paid off. When I saw weakness, I bet big. When I felt a trap, I escaped while it was still cheap. Playing the players was effective, and my premium hands held up.

Since I started playing poker, my no limit game has been relatively unsophisticated because there's no point in outthinking idiots. But while there are still plenty of donkeys at 2/4 NL, every dollar becomes more valuable, and tight, standard play opens the door for aggressive players to manipulate your patterns.

It's a fine line between tricky poker and fancy play syndrome, but that edge is where I want to live.

It's funny. Earlier this afternoon I was questioning myself and thinking about taking a few days off.

But then I drank some yerba mate, got a caffeine rush and dominated the tables.